Le Viet doesn’t look like your typical Vietnamese place. Neither the ones in Vienna, nor the ones in Vietnam, where they like it bright and colorful. Rather Le Viet looks as if it has taken over the gloomy interior of a previous restaurant and kept it. The dim lighting and dark walls say nothing about the food though.
Le Viet has a small dining room and is quite popular. Without a reservation we would not have had a table on a Friday evening. We met at 7pm and shortly thereafter the place was full.
dark interior @Le Viet
I forwent a starter and ordered a beef pho. This is by far my favorite kind of soup and one I had many times during my travels in Vietnam. The pho at Le Viet comes with fresh Thai basil, bean sprouts, a mix of black bean sauce and spicy sauce, red onion slices, and a lemon wedge on the side. The lemon irritated me a bit, because it is usually a lime. The soup though was very tasty and had simmered on the stove for many hours for sure. I thoroughly enjoyed eating it.
beef pho @Le Viet
My friends both ordered a small vegetable soup with tofu and one of them had an allergic reaction to MSG. She thought it was probably in the soup. Now is nothing bad, it’s only a problem if you are allergic. I can’t say I noticed anything and neither did my other friend. Both ordered the mix appetizer platter, which had a lot of fried food on it. One liked it, the other didn’t, but they did finish it all. To me though it looked boring. There’s so much more to Vietnamese food than fried spring rolls, but whatever. Honestly if this had been my order, I would be disappointed.
mix appetizer platter @Le Viet
There was one more order, that of a green papaya salad. Already the presentation of it was stunning. It arrived in a crispy shell of fried rice paper and looked absolutely scrumptious. My friend enjoyed it immensely and commented twice on its excellent flavor.
green papaya salad @Le Viet
So despite a rather gloomy interior Le Viet left a very positive impression. The food was great and we all enjoyed it. You do need to wash your hair though after a visit. So you might want to take that into account. Yours, Pollybert
Le Viet
1010 Wien, Stubenbastei 12
Tel: +43 1 5120218
Mon-Thu: 11:30-15:00, 17:30-23:00; Fri-Sat: 17:30-23:00
https://www.leviet.at/index.php
