Vietnamese pancake (banh xeo) at Mien Tay (November 2008)
What a difference a few months can make. I first visited Mien Tay in late June 2008 (soon after it got a nice writeup in TimeOut) and then again just a few weeks ago, in November. My notes of the first experience amounted to “good food, overwhelmed service” (because of the exposure it got from several good reviews, not just the one in Time Out). My notes from the second experience were “mediocre food, very attentive and sweet service, and lots of customers ordering egg fried rice and getting drunk.”
Usually when a mom-and-pop place like Mien Tay disappoints me, I don’t bother writing about it, because (1) who cares if a small place is sub-par; and (2) I’m biased towards underdogs and therefore hate the idea of piling on to a small business’s struggles. But not only did Mien Tay get that positive writeup in TimeOut, but also the Metro gave it some love and The Evening Standard‘s Charles Campion gave it some attention. So now I don’t feel like they’re the underdog anymore.
So the Night and Day differences in my two visits brought to mind the nagging question of how many times – and when – should I visit a restaurant before I spout off on whether it’s any good? (And I certainly couldn’t object if you labeled this one the “take myself too seriously” post).
Most of us bloggers (and most publications, even) don’t have the New York Times critic’s budget (and time and willpower) to visit a place five times before we write a review. So the best I can do is tell you how many times – and when – I visited a place before forming my opinion, and I try to be detailed in my examples of why something is good or bad. And then after that, readers abide by a blog world’s version of caveat emptor (i.e., it’s great if you trust my opinion, but beware the limitations of food blogging).
London Eater, by the way, has been writing thoughtful posts on why we trust food bloggers even though some of us aren’t exactly inconspicuous at restaurants (so query the consumer advocacy of someone who’s drawing special treatment perhaps as much as a professional reviewer would), and most of us visit a restaurant only once before sharing our opinions.
Exhibit A: soft-shell crab at Mien Tay in late June 2008
Now, back to Mien Tay. Here’s an example of why, despite a very good food experience there in June, I’m now cautious about going back. Exhibit A: soft-shell crab in late June 2008 was crispy, grease-free, and exploding with juiciness. For a minute, I thought I was back in DC when the first soft-shell crabs from the Chesapeake are on the market. I crunched every last crab leg and it was £7 happily spent.
Exhibit B: soft-shell crab at Mien Tay in November 2008
Then, during my recent meal, I ordered the same dish. And this time, despite the fact that my camera and the lighting were crappier, you’ll see Exhibit B bears almost no resemblance to Exhibit A. Exhibit B doesn’t even look like crab anymore. These were flat, perfectly-round crab patties. Like something you’d buy out of a frozen food box. Where were the crab’s legs? Where was the juicy inside?
crispy pork at Mien Tay (November 2008)
To be fair, our recent meal at Mien Tay wasn’t *all* bad. It just wasn’t as good as it was when we were there in June. The prawn pancake was hot and crispy and full of big, well-cooked (i.e., not mealy and tough) prawns. Our pho was good enough (it’s not Song Que or Huong Viet broth, but at least there’s no mile-long queue like at the former and no crazy-harried-inattentive servers like at the latter).
In fact, the service that drove us crazy in June had much improved. Despite the fact that we were seated upstairs in Siberia, there were always servers when tap water needed refilling or bottles needed opening. These guys were super attentive and nice.
So overall – where am I on Mien Tay?
The service was trying so hard and the dishes other than soft-shell crab were still good enough that I will go back and give them another try. But if you’d asked me in June what I thought, I would’ve been singing Mien Tay’s praises. I held back on blogging that time because, frankly, I felt sure the service would get its act together (and it seems they have!) and then I could talk about Mien Tay’s perfection.
I surely hope my second trip was the anomaly, because I’m running out of Vietnamese faves in town – Huong Viet is just no longer worth the schlepp; Song Que‘s queues always put me off; Cay Tre has never impressed me (though given the many people who love it, I could be ordering tragically wrong there); and my neighborhood standby Viet Garden can be so uneven depending on the dish that its biggest strength is its location 120 seconds’ walk from my flat. So Mien Tay, I hope you kick ass the next time I visit.
Our meals both times never topped £15 a person, despite aggressive ordering of two appetizers and three mains. It is, of course, BYOB with no corkage.
Mien Tay, 122 Kingsland Rd, Shoreditch, E2 8DP. Tel: 020 7729 3074
An American in London 
Good Friday morning to you RWApple !
Nice of you to be willing to give them a third chance after that ! Even though the rpice was tight and the service was better, the soft shell crab debacle was pretty inexcusable.
If you like it – would you be willing to add my ‘Travel Treasures’ blog to your links ?
Thank you, I really appreciate it, being a newbie and trying to get off the ground 🙂
Hope that you have a good weekend.
Genuinely,
Loving Annie of Travel Treasures
http://www.truetraveltreasures.blogspot.com
And when I am in London this April, if you’d like to get together for afternoon tea one day, that would be really fun !
If I was interviewing someone for a job, I wouldn’t give them five chances to get it right.
If I were looking for one new dress, I wouldn’t buy five. (Except maybe if they were all exceptionally on sale and I looked fantabulous in all of them.)
I wouldn’t marry the same person five times. (Of course, maybe that’s why I’m still single.)
The only argument I can make for repeatedly going back to the same restaurant in order to review it is that you want to make sure its goodness is super-consistent. That the first visit wasn’t a fluke. But if it’s bad on the first visit, I’d give up. Likewise, if it’s good the first time and crap the second time, I’d give up. There’s really no excuse for a restaurant to have its bad foot forward.
Hi Krista,
The thing is, in an ideal world with lots of time and money, I’d *love* to be able to meet a candidate several times before hiring him or her. If I’m interviewing a new admin, then no, I probably won’t interview him/her five times before hiring. But if I’m interviewing the new CEO, yeah, I’ll make the time.
And no, I wouldn’t marry someone five times, but you’d better believe I went on (more than) five dates with my now-husband before I married him.
My point is that if it’s important enough to you that you want to form the most accurate opinion possible (of anything, not just restos), you’ll put in the time bc I think that putting in more time is optimal/preferable to not.
So I definitely see the value of visiting a place multiple times before writing a review, but I also see why, for many reasons, that’s not possible for most of us who like to eat out and write about it (including those reviewers who write for a paycheck). And luckily for my sense of usefulness, I think an opinion is still valid even after “just” one visit. [I just think one visit is not ideal.]
Cumulatively, all of our individual visits add up to some kind of consistent picture of a place (which is one of the reasons I love that London Restaurant google search widget you created).
So to wrap up, I’d say that ideally, I’d like to visit restaurants multiple times before writing about them, but I also think – like you – that failing to visit multiple times doesn’t invalidate our opinions on the place. I am, after all, the master of the snap judgment when it comes to other aspects of my life, and as you say, a restaurant should really have its best foot forward every time (and the great ones really do).
ive always been looking for a good vietnamese restaurant to try out at because my frend (who is fussy) really would like to eat vietnamese food in london. However, they all are soo faraway =(. So nevermind but i this post espcially because you compare it with this visit and last visit! hehe, the fried crab lol both pictures loo kcompletly different. I had to look at it twice and read it agin to confirm that both dish was fried crab haha.
And as a blogger i tend to just try it once because really, im just not that rich. lol
[…] Tre can take us…at 4 p.m.No thanks.So Kingsland Road it is. I've just read this review of Mien Tay on An American in London and I'm intrigued. Between Chris & Evelien and myself, we've […]