Emilia reviews impressive Vietnamese eatery with a very authentic feel

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You know when you go to a restaurant and it makes you miss a country? Ba Nguyen felt so authentic I yearned for my time in Vietnam, from the moment I walked toward the shop and saw the illuminated green sign with “Ba Nguyen” in the quintessential Vietnamese font, thermoses full of tea.

You likely know Victoria Street, Richmond as a hub for authentic Vietnamese food but if you’ve never been to the outer North-West you might not know that St Albans is the true hub. Over a quarter of St Albans’ population are Vietnamese meaning their Vietnamese restaurants are as authentic as they come. I actually found Ba Nguyen because I was planning to go to another Vietnamese restaurant in the area and all the comments said that Ba Nguyen was better. You know when the locals are standing up for one of their own that you should trust it.

As we entered it was quickly obvious that we were the only non-Vietnamese people there, that’s when you know you’ve found the local haunt. Vietnamese pop music played from the TV above the front counter and families, friends and my second pyjama pant sighting in two weeks, this time on a Vietnamese grandmother with her granddaughter having dinner. If you’ve previously played it safe with your Vietnamese order or maybe not taken the foray into Vietnamese, I want you to take this journey with me. Trust me on this one; hold my hand and I’ll tell you exactly what to order. 

Ba Nguyen is known for a Northern Vietnamese dish, Bánh Cuốn which is traditionally a breakfast dish – it literally means “rolled cakes” but I would liken it to more of a Vietnamese dumpling. It’s a thin, wide sheet of fermented rice batter filled with a meat or mushroom mix, steamed and then rolled. What sets Ba Nguyen a step above the rest is they make every order of Bánh Cuốn fresh and it makes a big difference with a dish like this as the thinness and moistness is what makes it so good. 

You then dip each roll into nước chấm which is a slightly sweet, fish sauce. We got chicken filling and it comes with a side of Vietnamese “ham”, bean shoots and shredded lettuce. I would travel here just for this dish. 

On the recommendation of the passionate Ba Nguyen supporters I tried the Nem Ram which is another Northern Vietnam specialty and is an elevated large, crispy spring roll. Their version is about triple the size of a normal spring roll, think the size of a Chiko roll and filled with vegetables. They take a while to prepare and are often made as a special occasion when made at home because of this. 

The Xoi Thit is considered comfort food and it literally translates to sticky rice and meat. The meat in this particular recipe was braised pork & pate and was topped with pork floss. They kept the braised pork belly in some of the jus and it just fell apart in your mouth, the flavour was balanced sweet and sour and again it was the freshness that was so obvious throughout all the dishes.

Lastly, I had to test one of my old favourites – Bun. It is vermicelli noodles, (of which they don’t skimp at all) grilled pork, bean shoots, lettuce and herbs like coriander and mint. The grilled pork had a smokiness that was complemented by the lightness of everything else. Different from most other bun that I’ve had in the past, they didn’t give you a sauce to pour over everything and eat it as a salad but rather you would eat it bite at a time picking up some lettuce, pork and noodle in every bite. No sauce was necessary. 

The tea provided in the canisters on the table was refreshing and had a sweetness to it. To exemplify the character of the staff and of Vietnamese people from my experience in my travels; when I asked what it was and they couldn’t describe the tea in English they went and got the bag of tea to show me. It was Pandan Ginseng Green Tea with flavours of coconut, malt, pineapple and toasted rice which made it sweet too. It’s not licensed but it gives you a chance to try a drink you mightn’t have had in the past – I tried kumquat juice. 

Nothing on the menu at Ba Nguyen is over $20, most sit around $15-17. It’s extremely affordable street food that attracts locals from 9am-8pm everyday. Locals really get in and get out before bed time, we were the last ones left in the restaurant at 7:30pm. 

Outside of Vietnam, this could be one of Melbourne’s best Northern Vietnamese restaurants, there wasn’t anything about my order I would have changed. It was a battle to decide what dish to next take a bite of at any given point. If you can swing a trip past St Albans, I can’t recommend Ba Nguyen highly enough.

Ba Nguyen

290A Main Rd East

St Albans