Instead of ordering a chinese takeaway this weekend, why not make a night of it and go for a sit down meal at your local oriental restaurant?
I love oriental food, but because takeaways are usually packed full of calories they are an occasional treat for me. I especially love the huge variety of dishes you get on oriental menus and can honestly say there’s not one dish I don’t enjoy. So when I do decide to indulge I usually order far too much food for one sitting and end up living on leftovers the following day. Who says chinese takeaway isn’t a valid breakfast food?
Oriental is definitely my favourite type of takeaway, but I think you get a better quality of meal if you venture out of the house and eat in at a restaurant instead. One of my family’s favourites is the Nam An vietnamese restaurant in Wanstead, East London…
Address: 157 Wanstead High Street, London, E11 2RL
Tel: 020 8532 2845
The Nam An has a very warm and welcoming interior, traditionally decorated with beautiful teak wood. The restaurant is all on one large floor with plenty of tables, including some large round ones with a lazy susan in the middle. According to my dad, the building used to house Wanstead’s old cinema, back in the days before multi-screens. Walking down onto the restaurant floor from reception you cross over a small bridge over a little pond with koi carp – it’s all very pretty.
Vietnamese food is very similar to chinese, with a fantastic selection of soups and seafood dishes. The portion sizes here are good and while it’s at the higher end of the price scale, I think the prices are reasonable for the quality of the food. The set menus here vary in price from around £20 per head up to £35.
My particular favourite dishes are seafood fried rice served in a hollowed out pineapple and duck cooked with lemon. This has sliced duck breast with a slightly crunchy, almost salty, sweet and sour type lemony coating. I’m not a fan of lemon chicken at all, as it can be very sickly sweet, so I didn’t think I’d like this one at first, but in fact it’s not sickly at all and extremely moreish. The whole sea bass is also amazing, but really huge, so make sure there’s a few of you who like fish served on the bone to avoid any being wasted.
There is a decent selection of wines and the service is always friendly and attentive without being overbearing. I’ve never ordered a desert, as at the end of the meal you are given complimentary fruit, which is always so fresh and perfectly ripe I’ve never felt the need for anything else sweet. (As the food is so nice, I never have any room left anyway!)
On looking on the web I’ve discovered that the Wanstead restaurant is just one of two branches, the other is on Camden High Street and also does lunchtime meals. If you’re in the area, I’d definitely recommend you give these restaurants a try.
