Checking out the Vietnamese food at Coco Tang

Coco Tang tucked away along Byard Lane in Nottingham is the last of the local Vietnamese food spots that I had left to try.

The rest of the current gang being Viet 80’s, Wonder Pho, Pho, and Hello Vietnam (Bun Mii and Vietcentric seem to have passed on)

I read that it was designed to ’emulate 1950’s Saigon and that they have built the entrance into a replica of a 1980’s Mong Kok alley.

All I will say is that it certainly has a lot of character and is certainly well designed and an interesting place to stop, grab a drink and have a bite of food

FOOD MENU

The menu had a lot of interesting sounding Vietnamese dishes including an offering of a bowl of Pho.

Now those of you who read and subscribe will know that I have a penchant for any style of noodle soup and will no doubt be expecting another review along those lines.

Tonight though I will disappoint you as I opted for one of their Vietnamese salads. I wanted something that I could eat without spillage and with more decorum than usual.

Perhaps I was a little self conscious in this young trendy hipster establishment and perhaps I just could not be arsed working my magic with the chopsticks for a few soupy noodles. Coco Tang it was me not you 🙂

Bún bò trộn Nam Bộ

I had the Bún bò trộn Nam Bộ or ‘Traditional Vietnamese Beef Noodles for £14.50 which was essentially a bowl of ‘fried beef, Rice Noodles, Pork Spring Roll, Salad & fried Onions‘

It was nice enough, pretty tame flavour and spice wise but never the less a decent sized bowl.

The crispy chopped up bits of spring roll were probably my favorite bite texture and taste wise even though they looked like something from an Iceland buffet party tray.

I did enjoy the noodles which were buried under all the crisp salad, beef and fried bits of onions and I can’t complain about anything really just that lack of excitement as I was eating it all.

Not so secretly I was hankering after that Pho and knew I had made a mistake

TOFU AND SPRING ROLL SALAD

My partner in dine chose the Tofu and Spring Roll salad which as the name suggests was Fresh Cubed Tofu and Vietnamese Spring Rolls, with Rice Noodles & Vietnamese Pickled Salad for £12.5

It looked very similar to my bowl except that beef was replaced with deep fried tofu cubes and there was a salad of pickled veg strips instead of a chopped green salad

It was judged to be nice enough but like mine I felt it was a bit plain and was essentially fried bits on salad with some noodles. Hey though that is still a pretty good combination so lets roll with this

I think that this place was more about the cocktails and I felt it was more for the young hip drinking crowd as opposed to the diners in search of a Vietnamese treat on a plate.

I stumped up the £11.50 for my large G&T without a pause while a more daring selection of a Kyoto Garden (some sort of green Macha effort) was chosen by my partner.

It did look impressive and was definitely instagram worthy, happily there was substance beyond the style as it tasted OK too

Much as I enjoyed visiting Coco Tang and I am glad that I have ticked it off the list, this probably is not my sort of place.

I could consider coming back for the Pho but I am not sure that my heart would really be in it if I did