Cafe Nem

If you’re a regular Vietnamese foodie and have been to Vietnam and Kingsland Road/​Mare Street/​Old Street to enjoy the wonderful restaurants there, I’d urge you to stay well clear.
The staff and owner are NOT vietnamese, I believe they are Chinese and evidentally have little knowledge of vietnamese cooking. Unfortunately the owners have opted to cater for the local population (larger number of vegetarian/​halal) which is fine, but seeing that a BIG range of vietnamese food is pork based, this creates a massive gap in vietnamese cooking.
I’ll go into some detail: Our mixed banh xeo was the size of my palm and there was 1 half prawn in there, soggy as hell too… Banh cuon was microwaved (the plate was hotter than the food and the food was obviously nuked as it broke apart when we tried to pick it up!). Quails were soaked in sugary water — tasted like I was eating candied poultry.
Again as there’s no pork, we couldn’t order any thit nuong or cha nem.
Onto the mains… So if you’ve eaten phở before anywhere else, I can guarantee you that this place will serve you the thickest cut phở in the west — we are talking borderline chow mein style noodles. The meat is clearly used for take away purposes (roughly mass cut mediocre meat and stored in the fridge for a few days until its used). One word of advise — DO NOT go for the curry phở. Grossest thing I’ve eaten in a while.
So in summary if you are local, vegetarian/​eat halal, need something quick and cheap then this is a good bet for you.
If you’re the kind of customer who likes to order seaweed/​sesame prawns on toast/​aromatic duck claiming that its authentic and oh so oriental (ie. you will order that in any of the following types of restaurants: Thai, viet, Chinese, Malaysian, fusion Asian) — this place will be ideal for you.
If you like Vietnamese food steer clear to avoid disappointment. (For a decent north London vietnamese, search for Vy Nam café).

Nice place for to the none Vietnamese. No pork on the menu which makes it hard to get the true favor of the dish. Never had lamb bun before and it was really good!
Service: 2 Stars
Food: 3 Stars
Value 3 Stars
Will I be back? Sure! The grilled lamb was that good and would make a darn good banh mi!