By Trilby Goouch
Blogs Editor
QJBlogs brings you our hidden gems of Kingston series where we highlight local restaurants and boutiques.
I discovered this restaurant as a recommendation from a family friend. When you walk into Golden Viet Thai, you get an immediate sense that it’s a family-run business. Located at 206 Wellingston St., the restaurant exudes a cozy and unfussy atmosphere, with traditional Chinese décor. We were the only customers eating at the time, which doesn’t usually bode well as a sign of a good eat, but we thought to take our chances. When we took our seat, within seconds we were given a menu and asked our order almost immediately- no fuss, just efficient service. The menu boasts a wide range of soups (a small hot and sour soup for $2.49), noodle dishes (pad Thai, vermicelli, beef, satay and egg noodles) and a wide range of curries, including green, yellow and red varieties. The prices are budget friendly; our meal for 2 came to just over $20 with tip, and most noodle and curry dishes go for $8-$10. This a great place to take your visiting parents if you want to go out for a meal but keep the bill budget-friendly.
I ordered the pad Thai with chicken, shrimp and tofu, which was quite different from most pad Thai dishes I’ve ordered at various Thai restaurants. The dish was doused in a rich brown sauce that had a definite soy-sauce flavour to it, as opposed to the drier, more curried noodles I’ve had in the past. The serving was generous and the food was nice and hot.
My Dad ordered the lemongrass chicken, also a generous serving of sautéed chicken in a lemongrass sauce served atop a bed of rice.
I really liked the pad Thai; the extra sauce made it taste quite different from regular pad Thai, and the chicken was moist and tender. My one complaint is that I only found 2 shrimp in my dish and would have preferred more. My Dad found the lemongrass flavour to be rich and flavourful, but felt it needed more vegetables and the sauce didn’t taste as authentic as others he had had in the past..
Though there was no sign of our waitress throughout the course of our lunch (she sat at the back of the restaurant chatting with the cook), I didn’t mind being left to enjoy my food, although a water top-off would have been nice. We took the initiative and walked up to the cash to pay our bill, where a friendly woman who’s likely the owner served us.
If you’re looking for attentive service, this might not be your best bet for Vietnamese food. However if you’re looking for a cheap and cheerful meal, this place does the trick. With its close proximately to Princess St, it’s convenient and easy to get to by bus or walking. It also serves delivery and takeout, ideal for those winter nights where you don’t want to leave the house.
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