Food review: Saigon Alley serves simple, tasty, affordable fare

SINGAPORE — Mid-priced Vietnamese food in Singapore seldom comes in an alluring setting. If the food is good, the ambience is often lacking, and vice versa. The new Saigon Alley, which opened at Novena Gardens two months ago, manages to bridge that gap between good, affordable Vietnamese food and an enticing dining room. 

THE VIBE 
Opened by Hidden Door Concepts, the people behind crowd pleasers such as Spathe and Kitchenette Bakery, Saigon Alley is as chic and hip as its sister establishments. In this nondescript row made up of tired-looking eateries, the cosy restaurant is a breath of fresh, stylish air. Colourful graffiti and torn newspaper and magazine pages line its raw brick walls, while Vietnamese silk lanterns lend an oriental charm to its urbane setting. 

WHAT TO ORDER
The offerings are refreshingly homespun, with many dishes confidently saturated with fish sauce. The lot leaf beef rolls (S$10) — ground, seasoned beef wrapped in betel leaves and deep-fried — are full of flavour. As are the crab spring rolls (S$8), with a fresh, sweet filling that comes encased in a wonderfully crisp-chewy rice paper skin.

While there are classic pho dishes on the menu and some fantastic Hue-style spicy Australian beef noodles (S$14), you would be missing out if you didn’t order from the list of meats. Roast chicken may be ubiquitous, but rarely is the skin so crisp, the meat so succulent and the marinade so deliciously concentrated as in the rendition here (S$12). The braised pork belly with lemongrass (S$12), its broth enriched with coconut water and sharpened by lashings of fish sauce, begs for a bowl of steamed white rice (S$2).

It is, however, that famous Vietnamese hoagie, the banh mi, that has us swooning. Its appearance also solves the mystery of the enchanting perfume of freshly baked bread that permeates the restaurant.

Biting into that house-made baguette is a rather joyous experience, as its fine crust shatters softly against teeth, yielding to tender, pillowy insides. At only S$7, ours is slicked with mayonnaise and stuffed with a slivers of lemongrass-infused pork, chicken liver pate, slices of pork sausage and a showering of fresh coriander, spring onions, chillies and pickled carrots. 

WHAT NEEDS WORK
It is difficult to fault an eatery in which pretensions are few and the food is as good as it is affordable. What delighted us even more was our young Vietnamese server who knew the intricacies of every dish and was obviously passionate about the food she was presenting. 

VERDICT
It won’t be long before the neighbourhood discovers the merits of this little gem, so best to hotfoot it down now.

Saigon Alley
Where: 
271 Thomson Road, Novena Gardens
Telephone: 
6256 02691
Opening hours:
Daily noon to 2.30pm, 6pm to 11pm, closed on Sunday