Phong Dinh Footscray

Phong Dinh, specialising in hu tieu mi (rice/egg noodle) dishes, has opened on the seemingly ill-fated site that housed the short-lived Thai and Korean restaurants.  Let's hope they have a long and prosperous future there, as the food is really promising.

LOVE the outdoor area.  It's not a "true" outdoor area in the sense that you can't smoke out there and probably couldn't bring a dog, but you still get lots of lovely fresh air and feel somewhat more comfortable making huge amounts of noise and mess (...whether you have kids with you or not!)

Hu tieu mi tom thit (kho) - rice & egg noodles with prawn and pork (dry) $9

Hu tieu mi literally means "rice/egg noodle" and are a subset of dishes that can be made with either rice or egg noodles (or my favourite, a mixture) with some sort of topping/main ingredient, such as a piece of crispy fried chicken, wontons, prawn and pork, seafood etc.  Some hu tieu mi dishes will say "soup/dry".  "Soup" means that broth will be ladled on top to make a full bowl of soup whereas dry means the noodles will come as a sort of salad with a small bowl of broth on the side.

after mixing...

The prawn and pork hu tieu mi is perhaps the most classic in my opinion and while I love the soup version, a good "dry" (kho) is excellent - as is Phong Dinh's version.  Here, a tangle of fabulously textured, pleasantly bitey clear rice and curly egg noodles are tossed with just a little dark sauce (I think dark sweet soy?) and then topped with good prawns, tasty sliced pork, a quail's egg, bean sprouts and a cracker "lid".  This is dressed with just a little judiciously-applied sweet chilli sauce.  Add a spoonful or two of their absolutely excellent broth, filled with pork mince, chips of pork fat and spring onion, and mix (Thanks Hung for the tip a long time ago).  Slurp slurp, moan...  Delicious!

Com tam bi suon cha trung, $9

Great com tam - a very generous serve of broken rice (rice once "broken" in two as a by-product of milling but now produced for its own merit, beloved for its different texture to whole rice) with a well-marinated, tasty pork chop, snipped for ease of eating with fork and spoon.  The egg was divine with a runny yolk just begging to be popped.  Great bi (shredded pork and skin) which I normally do not love, but this was really fresh, very meaty and you could really taste the intriguing, nutty flavour of the roasted rice powder.  Lots of vegies, both pickled and fresh, lighten up what can be a meatfest.

Goi do bien (seafood coleslaw) $18.50

The only down point of the meal was the seafood coleslaw.  These vary wildly in price and had been originally what I wanted for dinner.  We couldn't get a spot at Hao Phong, where the coleslaws are all around $10 (looking at old pictures, I think they are smaller serves though).  This was $18.50 and didn't really seem like a coleslaw than a mixed pickle with seafood...  There was well-pickled carrot, daikon and onion, very sweet, with very little contrasting greenery and not enough crunchy shallots or peanuts.  Still, the seafood was fresh and we did eat the lot.

A very promising new offering to the Hopkins Street scene.  They are licensed which is handy and take cards albeit with some surcharges (none for EFTPOS).  The menu does include all the classics like rice paper rolls, beef in vine leaf etc.  Other menu gems I want to check out are mi siu cao (egg noodles with big prawn dumplings, usually only an off-cart secret of sorts at yum cha), Hanoi-style rice vermicelli soup and some good-looking barramundi in a clean tank, ready for eating with tamarind sauce or ginger and shallots.

I believe Phong Dinh either have or had an original restaurant in St Albans.  I also saw what I think is a second Phu Vinh opening in Sunshine recently.  Hu tieu mi shops rock!

Phong Dinh
152 Hopkins Street, Footscray


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