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14/20Critics' Pick

Phu Quoc

Updated ,first published

Spring rolls, sugar cane prawns, rice rolls with herbs and dipping sauce.
1 / 3Spring rolls, sugar cane prawns, rice rolls with herbs and dipping sauce. Wolter Peeters
The dining room.
2 / 3The dining room. Wolter Peeters
From left, Dan Tran, Mai Le, Hoa Le and Cam Le at Phu Quoc.
3 / 3From left, Dan Tran, Mai Le, Hoa Le and Cam Le at Phu Quoc. Wolter Peeters
14/20Critics' Pick

Phu Quoc

Vietnamese$

Evergreen favourite with a perennial queue.

Arrive early, slip through the rows of tables and prepare to enjoy bold (and very hands-on) Vietnamese classics at this unassuming but stellar local.

Dishes come out fast and furious, and are devoured just as efficiently by tables packed with friends and families. Spring rolls – scorchingly hot and shatteringly crisp – are a must, while deep-fried quails feature delicate, gamey meat beneath crisp skin.

Steaming bowls of banh canh cha ca, with fish cakes, faintly sweet broth and a swirl of fat among slippery noodles are inhaled in no time, but it’s the sugar cane prawns, fluffy and finely minced, that take pride of place on most tables, set to be snipped up with kitchen shears and eaten with soup or vermicelli and herbs.

Phu Quoc isn’t a place to linger, but when John Street’s other wonders are just around the corner, why would you?

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.

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