hanoi hannah

"Sex, drugs and rice paper rolls" announces the awning above the hippest Vietnamese restaurant in this neck of the woods.

The lights are dim and pink, the music is right now and the food is fusion but tasty.

I met a friend J here for dinner on a weeknight when our working lives point blank looked like scenes from the director's cut of Horrible Bosses. After a lively exchange of ways to make the problem "permanently go away" J and I drank from big white fleshy coconuts and ordered away with reckless abandon.

Due to the fact that J is very cool and I didn't want to embarrass her with my intrusive food photo-taking, the photos below are terrible. But I filched a good one from Food with Frank.

Chilli prawn with papaya salad. Photo from Food with Frank - http://www.foodwithfrank.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/IMG_1599.jpg

Papaya was thinly shredded and the sour/spicy sauce had soaked all the way through the crunchy slivers. The prawn were a little limp but boiled prawns (as these were) are kind of hard to glamourise.

Soft shell crab with wasabi mayonnaise and lime, basking in all  its pink neon glory. Even from this angle the crab looks damn sexy.

J and I have a devotion to soft shell crab. It combines love of seafood with complete laziness - Hey! Just eat the whole damn thing - and this one was definitely the best order of the night. The crab was like the size of my palm! Complete with scrummy lime and an exotic take on mayo (wasabi).

Mixed mushroom pho and Vermicelli with lemongrass beef

I have never ever had a vegetarian pho before, so seeing "mixed mushroom" on the menu was delightful to my 70% vegetarian sensibilities. However, quickly after the pho arrived I realised why. The reason I love pho is 70% attributable to MSG and high-blood-pressure inducing levels of sodium and there was neither in this very very healthy but unfortunately bland bowl. The soup was bountiful with mushrooms though and mushrooms are always welcome.

Vermicelli with lemongrass beef or bun (pronounced "boon") was yum. Fish sauce, well cooked beef, ricey vermicelli noodles, what is there to complain about? Heaps of condiments to add spicy to your life and the prices here aren't too bad either.

Hanoi Hannah
180 High Street
Prahran
9939 5181