"99 times out of 100 something described as “juicy lamb from the grill” is going to be profoundly boring, yet at Eat Vietnam on Evelyn Street — the locus of the area’s latest flowering of great Vietnamese restaurants — it’s a proper Barnsley chop, marinated to the bone and rendered properly so the last bite of crispy, caramel fat is the sweetest, most satisfying bite of the evening. A fried sea bream comes on its belly in a beautiful chainmail of silver skin, still opalescent inside once the jerky exterior is peeled back. The head is picked at until the bill arrives. Not a word of criticism is aimed at a simple dish of morning glory from connoisseurs of the vegetable. What is Eat Vietnam doing differently to most of the places on Kingsland Road? The answer is simple: the owners still care." - Jonathan Hatchman
