In the heart of Kangaroo Valley, this small but perfectly formed Vietnamese restaurant is properly delicious
It’s not really fair to call Earls Court ‘Roo valley anymore, but back in the 60s just about every young Australian lived there. Today its grand old houses are more likely to be hotels than bedsits, but the area still has a certain rundown aura.
Down under one of the big houses, in what would once have been the servant’s domain, there is still a kitchen at 32-36 except now instead of boiling cabbages it’s grilling delicious fish and meats and simmering some wonderful Phos.
Med Sallah is the new restaurant from Med Pang and Koi Lee, the people behind critically acclaimed Malaysian favourite Med Salleh Kopitiam.
Once down the steep little steps you enter a compact place warmly painted and with a market scene across one wall. The chairs look like they’ve been rescued from a 1920’s British open topped car, they’re very covetable and also very comfortable.
Koi’s Vietnamese wife Syphong Lam is in the kitchen and out front is a welcoming and friendly team. Most of the customers also appear to be Vietnamese, which is usually a very good sign.
We sat back and let the team choose for us, after wimpishly specifying ‘no offal’ and we certainly got the works. Translucent prawn summer rolls with dipping sauce were packed with crispness and great clumps of fresh herbs, the prawns eerily visible through the wrapper skin as if hiding behind a shower curtain.
Rather cleverly the prawns are divided in half lengthways so they appear large but are in fact light and delicate. Veggies can have the version with mushrooms.
Moving on, a mango and prawn salad has the classic Vietnamese interplay of sharp, sour, sweet and hot. Tomatoes, grated carrot and lettuce all up the freshness. Personally I would have upped the fish sauce quotient too, as well as the lime, but I have no doubt this is done correctly for Vietnamese tastes. It was delicious all the same.
Med Sallah focuses on street food and in Vietnam that means things cooked over the simplest grills, literally on the street.
We have three superb lamb chops, crusted in spices, grilled and perfectly pink-ish. Lemongrass and chilli seem solidly represented and they are very gnawable right down to the bone where the best flavour always is.
Also grilled is a squid, the whole tube and at sea-monster size too. It’s not easy to cook squid well, it either needs to be cooked very fast and very hot, or slowly braised. In between it’s rubbery. Here it was spot on, and again generously but not overpoweringly spiced. The waitress cuts it into rings with large scissors, a very useful aid to eating. We have a little tussle over the tentacles, for me the best bit.
Bun Cha is cold vermicelli rice noodles with meat marinated in lots of lemongrass, garlic and fish sauce and soy sauce. You can have it here with grilled chicken, beef, prawn or mushroom. We have excellent beef and chicken, the cold noodles are a bit odd at first but we come to love them. I imagine they are wonderfully refreshing in a hot climate.
And Pho. Created in Nam Định, Pho Phở is of course broth, rice noodles, herbs, and meat. The meat cooks in the hot broth when mixed at the table. Here we had a version almost certainly not eaten on the average street, unless perhaps it’s Bond Street, which was their Classic Signature Truffle Wagyu Pho.
Well it was superb, the dense flavours of the stock pricked by the truffle and the beef was remarkable. Soft, melting and all too soon gone, but drinking the stock kept the flavours going.
And to end something from the mists of time, a deep fried banana with ice cream. This made me very nostalgic as I burned my tongue just as I used to do all those years ago. Mind you,this was fresh crisp batter, and back in the day that was unheard of.
You have to like Med Sallah, its cafe style relaxed atmosphere, the great food and the lovely people. Take a first date there and impress them with your knowledge of places not on the radar.
32-36 Hogarth Rd, London SW5 0PU
medsalleh.co.uk/viet-earls-court