Bad food, mediocre service - yet surprisingly honest. Those are the words of which I would describe my visit to Thach’s Quan Restaurant in Nedlands. The funny thing is that although I live rather close to this restaurant, I had never been inside it. I’ve always been curious about this place, since I hardly visit any of the restaurants and cafe’s around my area. So I guess it was TQR’s lucky day!

Food
We ordered the Lemongrass Chicken ($17.50), Pineapple Beef ($17.50), the Seafood Claypot ($21) and steamed rice ($1.80 per person).

The restaurant claims to have earned a reputation for authentic Vietnamese culinary creations and is the ideal place to experience fine Vietnamese cuisine. These culinary creations really dazzled and astounded me. It is such fine and authentic dining, that all three dishes were cooked and served in the exact same sauce.

The Pineapple Beef was ok, I guess. The dish is sliced beef fillets stir fried with pineapple, asparagus, onion, ginger, and red pepper. The good thing was the beef was good lean beef.

Lemon grass Chicken was described “fillet chicken stir fry with lemon grass and chilli”. Although there was chicken in the dish, it was very hard to detect the chilli - but even harder to detect any kind of lemon grass in the dish.

The Seafood Clay pot was seafood stir-fried with fresh vegetables and bean curd. Although I think I counted maybe two vegetables in the dish - broccoli and capsicum.

Service
The service was pretty mediocre. The waiters and waitresses were friendly enough I suppose, but not very observant. When we were ordering our meal, the waitress stood in front of my step-father and asked if we wanted anything else. We said no, and she left… but just before she left, I drew her attention to the fact that there was only 2 glasses on the table, not 3. So the girl grabbed a glass from an empty table next to us.

My mum found the food pretty bland and thought it was incredibly funny that the food exhibited such culinary talents that they were in the same sauces, so she asked for cut chilli in soy sauce. The waitress brought it out in a tiny bowl - but without a spoon.

In fact, the place seemed pretty spoon-less. All three dishes were did not come with serving spoons, even if we asked. And neither did the rice bowl. But I guess it was ok because since all three dishes had the same sauce, it wasn’t as if we were going to disturb the flavours of the lacklustre foods.

Honesty
Although they do not live up to their public claims of being a great exhibitor of great Vietnamese food, I do appreciate their honesty as it made me laugh. When my step-dad went to pay for the meal, he asked whether it was real Vietnamese food or not - even though my family obvious knew that it was pretty darn fake Vietnamese food.

The three staff members who were at the cash register admitted that the food was not authentic Vietnamese food, and was made for Westerners taste buds only. (Yes, finally a restaurant that admits they cheat the locals food-wise in the authenticity stakes!) Apparently all the staff are from Asia though - including the chefs. Or should I say cooks of the restaurant because they admitted that some of the ‘chefs’ were students.

I just had to crack up laughing. During the meal my parents and I made jokes about the food having the same sauce, the lack of creativity of the dishes, and so on.

When we walked out of the restaurant in higher spirits, my step-dad said to me that I should start having my own place and cooking - because I can cook way better than those students (and possibly professional Chefs) - and perhaps actually earn the high prices you have to pay for ‘fine’ dining instead of the crap they served us.

Thach’s Quan Restaurant
27 Stirling Highway
Nedlands WA 6009
Opening hours: 5pm - 9:30pm
Phone: (08) 9386 2889
Website: http://www.tqr.com.au