Saigon Vietnamese Delicacy at 749 Geylang Road

I had high hopes for this place, reading the other reviews online I had expected really good Vietnamese food, one that would make you come back time and time again. There are tons of good Vietnamese food in Australia, and it's so hard to find one in Singapore that meets the same standards. So far, we have found none. The food may be acceptable but it's far from the ones we are used to in Oz.

On this stretch of Geylang Road, there are at least 3-4 other Vietnamese restaurants (which I have to get around trying eventually), so I assume competition is pretty tough. Previously we went to Com Tam further up the road which we thought was very homely and somewhat seemed authentic. I think we prefer Com Tam to Saigon Vietnamese Delicacy.

Below is what we ordered and we also had a couple of drinks, one was a durian shake (I didn't taste it so not sure if it's good or not, my Dad finished it though so must be okay) and the other drinks were Lime Juice. I'm not really sure what went wrong with the Lime Juice, my one had a spoonful of granulated sugar on the bottom which just wouldn't dissolve. I was a bit surprised when I took my first slurp using the straw....as you can imagine I got a mouthful of sugar....not nice at all. Funnily enough the other cup didn't have it.

The restaurant felt homely and you could tell it was a family run business. Service was okay only, but the food came out really slow and one by one. Even the lime juice took at least 15-20 minutes to come out!

The food fell below my expectations, there was nothing I could really pin point saying it was terrible, but it also wasn't terrific. Very mediocre.  They have a FB site, go search for it and you can find their opening times. The shop was patronised by several Vietnamese people, so they must think the food is good enough. I don't think I would go back there again, but that's just me, if you like it, then hey great :)

This was called Water Fern Cake....it's basically rice cakes - tasted a bit like Chui Kueh that you can buy at hawker centres.

Special Beef Noodle Soup - it was 'special' because it had mixed beef toppings like beef balls, beef slices. The soup is super light, you can definitely taste the beef flavour, but we were looking for more Oomph!

Vietnamese Rice Noodles with BBQ Pork and Spring Rolls. This seemed ok, but my Dad mentioned that at Ion food court, there's a Vietnamese stall there that has the same dish for same price but gives a bigger piece of meat :p The sweet, sour, spicy sauce accompanying this dish and the rice dish was not bad. 

Rice with BBQ Pork chop, Steamed Egg, Shredded Pork Skin and pickles on the side. The pork was fragrant and tender (Com Tam one tastes better), the steamed egg, was alright only, I guess its appearance with the flecks of black fungus I think running through it makes it look less appetising. The shredded pork skin had a slightly weird taste to it, definitely the ones in Brisbane are much better. But this dish is passable because not many places have the shredded pork skin, and usually the egg is just a simple sunny side up.

Beef Stew with Rice/Bread/Noodles. This was 'interesting'. The soupy part was a bit gloopy, like too much cornstarch was put in to thicken the stew. The flavour was a alright, aniseedy and slightly aromatic, I'm convinced the yellowness is from turmeric or something. The beef was very tender, but this stew isn't anything I'd want to order again.