Marie S.
Yelp
There have been a number of restaurants springing up and I had heard about MOC Kitchen, initially, from some other foodies. Knowing that they wouldn't steer me wrong, I accepted an invitation to go along and try it out. The premises are located in The Arches down by Charing Cross.
I arrived at the restaurant at 7.00. I was the first one there so it gave me a good opportunity to have a look through the menu and take stock of my surroundings. This is not some uber-trendy, flash-in-the-pan,'look at me daaaahling' kinda place. This is a place that is welcoming, has comfortable chairs and tables and delicious smells drifting out from the kitchen. The menu has dishes that you would expect, Pho soups, fresh or hot spring rolls and curries, and some that surprised me. Mongolian duck and beef bourguignon for example. I had no idea there was a French influence in Vietnam!
To start our night we ordered the fresh spring rolls and rare beef mixed salad.
Both were as you would expect, fresh and tasty. The importance of using fresh herbs is evident in all the dishes and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the beef had been 'cooked' in lime juice. It was tangy, meltingly soft and texturally contrasted nicely with the onion and chilli (though personally speaking, I can never have enough chilli).
Mains were a bit trickier to decide. It all looked delicious so we had to resort to sensible tactics in choosing the protein dishes. Having had prawns and beef in the starters, we went for a yellow chicken curry and the Mongolian duck. There are of course vegetarian dishes and I would have tried them but I was in a carnivorous frame of mind. Of these I particularly liked the duck, it was sweet, sour and fresh, all at the same time. With good size portions of both, I was feeling pretty good after I had finished. Which is just as well as Vietnamese don't have a particularly sweet tooth, there are no desserts here. This is definitely my kind of restaurant - fresh ingredients showcased in a healthy, clean style of cooking.