noodleoodle

Cafe Hien Nhi - (03) 9310 9151 - shop 3, 47 Alfrieda Street St Albans 3021

I got totally lost on the way out there, but on the trip home I realised that it’s not all that far away. As my mission statement is to “search for great and surprising food under my nose”, I was very happy with my trip to St Albans. I’d never given the place a second thought. The end of a train line, nothing else.

What I discovered was a pleasant little shopping area with a distinctly Vietnamese flavour. Bakeries, hair dressing salons and real estate agents compete for attention with Vietnamese and Chinese signage. Numerous Asian grocery stores sell fresh noodles, vegetables and you name it. There are a number of Viet/Chinese restaurants, but what got me impressed was the concentration of dedicated soup shops. There is a strip of three that have seating on the street. Bun Bo Hue is advertsed a lot.

The Restaurant that I had a quick bowl of soup at was called Hien Nhi. It was in a little lane way off Alfrieda Street. It was a pretty random choice. I liked the atmosphere of all the lads lazing at the tables on the footpath out front, cigarettes and hot tea flowing.

I ordered Hu Tieu, a noodle soup with pork broth. It was lovely, the broth was strong and aromatic, accompanied by thinly slice rare meat, lettuce, crunchy pork croutons, and spring onions. It wasn’t until after I’d throughly enjoyed this bowl of noodles that I realised that the house specialty was Bun Mam (noodle soup made from dried fish), maybe I should have ordered this…argh regrets…