visiting "Vietnam" in springvale

Instead of going for a holiday to vietnam, it's cheaper and more convenient to just go to springvale. You can experience all the same sights, sounds and tastes of vietnam. everyone walking by would be speaking vietnamese, all the shop signs are in vietnamese, and all manner of vietnamese food is available, and quite affordably too. Parking is a bit of a problem on weekends though. We started off with this sandwich, below.

the famous "banh mi" which is a french baguette filled with slices of processed meat, pate, soy sauce, butter, carrot, spring onion, chilli and coriander. tasty.
and below, the famous pho which is rice noodles in a meat broth with fresh bean sprouts put on top just before serving. it's really nice to have these steamy hot soup noodles on a cold day.

with lots of coriander on top

here's the interior of the restaurant. we knew it was gonna be good coz it was full of people.
the front of the shop.
the menu.

You have to decide what to order by reading this menu in front because once you're in, there's nothing in English. Anyway, there're heaps of Vietnamese noodle shops in Springvale, so as a rule of thumb, pick one that's relatively full of people, coz that means it's good, and secondly, the less "done up" the exterior, the better the food. We've found that when it comes to asian food, the appearance of the restaurant and the taste of the food have an inverse relationship.