Vietnam encore

I could be wrong about this, but we are nearing the end of February and I have not eaten Indian food once this year. On the one hand this makes me think "Hot damn! I's going to have to get myself some sag paneer real soon", but on the other hand I have now been out for Vietnamese food on four occasions already and each meal has been excellent, whereas my experience of Indian food in London has been so-so overall. This is not to say that I want to compare Indian and Vietnamese cuisines (or doltishly imply that since they are Asian and "spicy" they must be kinda the same) but simply to wonder if Vietnamese food is becoming a new default eating-out option. Anyhow, enough of the yaddas and onto the food, which was a return trip to Cay Tre a restaurant which seems, rightly, to do very well out of having both a red (great food) and green (good value) stars in the Time Out food guide. I managed to order different things this time around, though only because I couldn't remember the names of dishes and there a number of crispy tofu options to go for. This restaurant is really doing a great job of convincing me of the merits of tofu because, while I've always liked it, there's never been any love there, but the crispy, crunchy way they prepare it and the style of serving (today with a rich sauce and kimch-style chilli'd ginger slices) is right up my strasse. I know that I should be shot for writing "right up my strasse", but it was what I was thinking, as if that is any kind of excuse.

We also had spring rolls, a big plate of water spinach (which S identified as mizuna), noodles with beansprouts (the single, yummiest thing on the menu I reckon - they have almost a smoky taste) and S+R ordered some "kangaroo squid", which was just squid and I didn't quite understand how it got its monicker. I had a banana fritter for pudding which was one of the best I'd ever had (the banana inside was almost molten), but I'll only give it an 8 as they had run out of coconut ice cream (it may be pushing 9 with that).

While decent value, this is not a super cheap restaurant, but it's one that I would happily come back to again and again because everyone seems to leave feeling happy and satisfied, the service is very good, the venue buzzy, and all the tastes are really clear and distinct.