It seems a shame to rate this place so harshly, given how excellent the food actually was. It's just to appreciate good food you've got to be served it in the first place.
Huong Que certainly gains no marks for effort in the decor stakes - we wondered whether the large plastic plants had been bought in specially, or if they'd been recovered from the skip following the refurb. They certainly haven't tried to go down the pretentious route here. A point of potential comedy/disaster was watching people slip on the wet flooring as they entered the restaurant. Plumping for a surface that becomes nearly frictionless when water is introduced seems an optimistic gambit in England, at best.
The menu, on cheerfully laminated A4 inkjet printed paper, listed a selection of appealing sounding dishes marked as Entrees and Mains, yet all priced more or less identically. The 5 of us made our selections, and watched as a waiter brought 3 bowls of Pho down the steps from the kitchen and managed to tip one all over the steps and himself, as the others stood looking on uncertain of what to do. The yellow "wet floor" bollard was deployed eventually.
My starter of cold rolls with prawn & pork was delivered in great time, but the waiter seemed unsure as to whether the spring rolls he had were for us, and disappeared with them. A few minutes later, Martin's fried prawns arrived. A few minutes later they collected my dish, then brought out Simon's starter. About 15 minutes later Liz's main course arrived, and we pointed out that we were still waiting for 2 starters. The waiter's confused reaction was bettered only by his response: "Maybe they will be here soon?". The other 4 main courses we'd ordered were there fairly soon, but there was no sign of the starters. Nor did we see any evidence of the 6th main course we'd ordered to share.
At 9:15 the waiter came over - as it turned out, not to apologise for our food going missing - to tell us that another party had booked our table for 8:30 and had been waiting some time, and effectively said we had to leave. We pointed out the missing items from our bill, and he seemed surprised that they hadn't arrived (odd, as it was him who we'd told previously), and generously adjusted the bill and volunteered to forego the service charge.
All a bit of a chronic shame really - my grilled pork noodle & spring roll dish was a tasty, filling, excellent example of Vietnamese cuisine, and most of the others seemed to enjoy theirs too.
If this place can tighten up on their service, they should be able to keep it ticking over very nicely indeed. If not, it'll leave me wondering whether "Huong Que" is some sort of Vietnamese tribute to London's "Wong Kei". Although in fairness, they're not inept - just purposefully rude. read more
