Thanh Binh, Newtown

Vietnamese restaurants are always a bit of a hit and miss for me. Naturally, I always compare them to Mum’s cooking and inevitably, they all fail to pass that test. But there are some that come a little bit closer than others. Thanh Binh is, in my opinion, only slightly above average.

It’s been about a week since I had the banquet there for a friend’s birthday and the main thing I remember now is that even though we told them we would be having the banquet when we booked, they somehow didn’t have the dessert dishes that night. Which is a real shame because I don’t compare restaurant desserts to Mum’s cooking and banana fritters and creme caramel sounded really delicious.

But anyway, looking to the bright side… they did a marvellous job of dealing with the array of allergies we had from the guests that night, even making slight adjustments to some of the dishes to ensure more of us could eat it. The funny story of the night had to be when the waiter assured me the “peanut dipping sauce” that accompanied the fresh rice paper rolls didn’t have peanuts, only for me to ask “what about peanut butter?” to which he nodded… hmmm indeed…

The best dish that night was the claypot caramelised seafood. If you’ve ever had the more common Vietnamese caramelised fish stew (“ca kho”), it is similar with a strong sweet fish sauce and pepper base but with squid and prawns as well as fish. It had a real spicy kick to it as well that made it perfect for pairing with the rice.

The other dish I really enjoyed were the spring rolls. They were very crispy but without an oily taste, with a pork filling and served with the classic fish sauce and some picked carrots.

The rest of the dishes were pretty average to me. The banquet is great value for money at $38 a head and we were stuffed after eating the fresh rice paper rolls, the spring rolls, a green papaya salad with beef (instead of the usual pork and prawn due to an allergy at the table), pepper beef, crispy chicken, and stir fried vegies and tofu. They also substituted some calamari for us in lieu of dessert.

Details: Thanh Binh on King, 111 King St, Newtown NSW 2042