Hansan's pan-fried chicken with lemongrass and noodle soup. Photo / Dean Purcell
Hansan's pan-fried chicken with lemongrass and noodle soup. Photo / Dean Purcell
Address: 55 Nuffield St, Newmarket Ph: (04) (09) 523 3988 Verdict: Comfort food as the autumn chill starts coming.
On one of those recent nights when a sudden cold snap hit, we changed our plans. The place we'd thought of going to would be uncomfortably chilly so we headed to Nuffield St in Newmarket, where we knew we could probably park easily and then survey the options from Mexicanto various Asian places.
By the time we got there we were cold, hungry and looking for some comfort food, so gravitated to the always busy Hansan Vietnamese Restaurant.
I've been to Vietnam a couple of times and it is — on a par with Korean, but I know that doesn't excite too many — my favourite cuisine out of that vast area from Pakistan to Japan we carelessly refer to as "Asia".
Hansan styles itself Vietnamese but the wall art is of Angkor Wat in Cambodia and there is a large Chinese Buddha painting.
"Vietnamese" may be a loose description at Hansan, but there were authentic looking dishes on the picture menu.
None of the starters interested us as they seemed wearily familiar (freshly wrapped prawn and pork spring rolls, pork rolls and so on — and Megan doesn't eat pork) so we decided to share three mains.
While our wine glasses were being brought — they have a few bottles by the till but no wine list evident, corkage was $5 although I unscrewed the cap — we decided on pan-fried chicken with lemon grass and noodle soup, stir-fried beef with black pepper sauce on vermicelli and rice, and stir-fried shrimp with black pepper sauce on rice.
Our pleasant young waiter dispensed with such lofty descriptions: we were having C12, B18 and S11 — although some other number arrived by accident, then swapped for ours.
Hansan is a lively place and although it had a large Asian clientele that yardstick has long since ceased to be a recommendation. A lot of Asian people eat at the worst kinds of fast food restaurants.
But the number of young people — and the large group of European twentysomethings carrying many wine bottles — suggested this was a place which was economic, cheerful and satisfying.
And so it proved: the chicken was the best by some way (fragrant and flavoursome), the beef ran second although it wasn't the finest quality, and the shrimp was substantial but ultimately lacking in much distinctive flavour.
We chatted, added chilli to the chicken broth to give it some sharpness, drank our bottle and settled for the banana sago dessert (hot, delicious and with coconut milk) because the multi-coloured drinks didn't look especially appealing.
So there it was: warm, filling, a significant step up from a food hall but nothing to get too excited about.
Couldn't complain about the satisfied feeling at the end or the modest bill — but this was Vietnamese as a job lot rather than anything refined.
We'll probably go back when the wind really starts to bite. And we parked within metres.
Rating out of 10 Food: 7
Service: 6
Value: 9
Ambience: 5
Our meal: Three mains, one dessert, $42
Wine list: Negligible. Bring your own.
