Que Huong Restaurant

My aunt was home and so Mama Pham, my aunt and I decided to go for a quick dinner before my night shifts. We were all passive aggressively trying to get the other person to decide, I backed out stating that Mama Pham was super picky and that my aunt would be secretly disappointed at whatever I chose. Mama Pham said she didn't care where we went and my aunt said I could choose because I was taking pictures for that thing on the internet I do. In the end, my aunt said she wanted to eat crab at Que Huong so off we went!

This place

Its located near the Darra Train Station, in the block of shops directly opposite. The restaurant is pretty stock standard Asian restaurant with lots of tables, live seafood in glass tanks and lots of families with young kids everywhere.

Specials +_+

Usual Asian set up

They have an absolutely MASSIVE menu. Brace yourself, menus are coming.

Yay free prawn crackers! The meal is already off to a good start.

Aw yiss freebies

Since I was heading to night shifts straight after dinner, I opted for a glass of Vietnamese iced coffee to perk me up. I really, really wish there was more of it, I guzzled it down in one go and was really sad afterwards. It was a very dark French roast with a strong body and perfectly slightly over sweet flavour.

Too much ice

Did I ever mention I dislike shellfish? I dislike most seafood that has a shell because it always seems to be more trouble than its worth, especially when you're super hungry and want to eat quickly. Ain't nobody got time for that. The second reason is because we normally go and get ours super, super fresh from the ocean, like pipis dug out of the sand from Strandbroke Island fresh. We're not super fussy about cleaning them out or making sure the sand is gone, so I was always used to getting a sandy mouthful of pipi flesh when I ate them. I've always had a bit of an aversion to them but these steamed ginger and shallot pipis were absolutely delicious.

They were very simply cooked, steamed with a giant blob of crushed ginger and shallot strands, served on the half shell. Not a single grain of sand to be found and with lots of liquid to sip up. We did ask for a dish of salt, pepper and lemon to liven up the flavour though.

Yum

As usual, we ordered some steamed green vegetables with oyster sauce. Bright, crunchy and covered in some plain oyster sauce. Nothing fancy here.

The usual

We got some Singapore Chilli crab. It was honestly some of the best I've ever had with a good balance between sweet, salty and sour flavours, with no particular one being dominant over the others. Mama Pham's one tends to favour tomato over all others, and she skimps on the chilli cause she's a wuss. This one was delicious and I was spooning up the sauce to eat my rice. I highly recommended it to Z., and she promised me that the next time that her family were going out for crab, they'd head here.

For some reason, I had a hankering for peking duck. I opted out of the duck san choy bow as our second course and went with the duck noodles instead. The pancakes were delicious! A smear of hoisin sauce, a piece of carrot, cucumber, some shallots and a piece or two of crispy, fatty duck skin with a fair hunk of flesh attached.

All the ingredients for our pancakes

Mmmm so much skin

Oh peking duck, you're so delicious. I could eat you every day for a long long time.

Pretty little thing

At this stage of the meal, I had to run off to work and I only just got to have a look at the duck noodles before I left. My aunt and Mama Pham hurriedly packed me a large Chinese food container to go. The picture below was actually the second container that they bought home as part of massive doggy bag, so you have a bit of an idea of how huge the serving was. These noodles were so amazing, I can't even explain how damn good they were. Succulent duck pieces, straw mushrooms, bean sprouts and the most amazing springy, e-fu noodles. God damn I love noodles but e-fu noodles are the top of my list.

These noodles were so damn good

Que Huong Restaurant
Atmosphere: 6, typical Vietnamese restaurant, lots of large families and kids running around. Basically looks like they converted part of a massive family home into a restaurant.
Service: 7, polyglot waiters who speak at least English, Vietnamese and Mandarin. There are a lot of them roaming around the floor, and while they're all a bit absent minded, its easy enough to get their attention and request additional things.
Food: 9, I cannot be more happy with the food. As a very traditional, highly opinionated Vietnamese cuisine loving Vietnamese lover of food, I rarely go to Vietnamese restaurants because of how well both myself and my mother cook. I would gladly go here again and again if the food remains of this calibre. -1 for the average veggies.