Cungdinh Vietnamese Restaurant, One Bangsar

Cungdinh Vietnamese Restaurant at One Bangsar - we love this place since it moved to the upstairs of the same building, along the One Bangsar row of bungalow restaurants. Downstairs is now Saigon, the club. Thank goodness the noise of the bar does not filter upstairs and you can hardly hear the ruckus going on below,as you eat. Anyway, the convenience of balcony dining is also an option now, since the place has relocated, and this is a real big plus. The manager is so nice that he does not mind if you dine inside, then outside, then inside... extremely charming service! One word of caution, if you fear mosquitoes, like moi, kindly dine inside.. that way you won't be a meal for those little bloodsuckers!

I love the Banh Beo as it is beautifully served on a tray, as individual dishes of steamed rice flour dough with tiny dried shrimp, spices and pork crackling (but in our case, fried breadcrumbs as this place is halal), served with a sweetened nuoc mam sauce. The fish sauce with the searing, hot chili is what gives it that tongue-numbing kick. Fantastic!

I told you it looked pretty!

Here we are on the balcony! My dining companions are great fun.. we can talk all night and still not run out of things to talk about. It's a real gift this talking non-stop business. It truly is:P

Tongue numbing BURN! You see the harmless looking skewers of prawn? At first we thought they were a push-over to eat. "Vietnamese food where got hot one.. ?" Exclaimed M at the start of the night. Boy was she wrong. The prawn is coated in this super-duper, rocket hot chili spices that will have your lips looking like Sophie Monk's trout pout in no time;) See how pouty we look?! Excellent food I must say. It felt light especially because of the greens they use in Vietnamese, and spicy enough to 'cut the grease' so.. yea, you end up not feeling much of your dinner at all.

The iced dessert to take the pain away - the Banh Flan.

The Banh flan(caramel flan) is a french dessert that made its way into vietnamese cuizine, via the french colonization of Vietnam. Just the thing to bring down the temperature in our mouths and help us recover from the killer spicy meal. This was on the house, so 'Thank you Mr. Manager'. We found this caramel flan flavoured with something that tasted like coffee and a little too egg-y. It was just so-so for us.

We also had the homemade vietnamese yogurt. This is my favourite dessert here.. much better than banh flan. It was more tart and had a thinner texture than your normal yogurt. Superbly smooth and creamy.

Finally, something to munch on whilst you chat and drink your vietnamese tea/coffee. Our friend M, was eating this like it was a main course. Says M... , "It's so nice hor... you can just eat it all in one go and not feel it!" Lucky thing it's ginger, and it's good for you! I am not so sure about the sugar coating though... can't be all that healthy consuming that much sugar huh?

Anyway, a great night out with my girl friends.. thank you for making it such a fun night out.. and thank you for the Vietnamese treat - great choice!

Add:
Cungdinh Vietnamese Restaurant (1st Floor)
One Bangsar,
Bangsar
(Non-pork)