Cafe East

24 Evelyn Street
Depford
London
SE8 5DG

Monday-Saturday 11am-2pm 5pm-10.30pm
Tuesday Closed
Sunday noon-10pm

Closest tube stop: Canada Water (approximately 15 minutes walk).

After much extensive research, it seemed that the most lauded location for pho in London is at Cafe East, in Depford.

Having craved pho, in all its forms, and being sadly deprived in Oxford, we took the opportunity of a day in London to hunt out this little gem of a place.

After a morning in Portabello Road market, A and I were already stuffed from our culinary adventures in Kensington. Trekking from Kensington to Surry Quays would mean a journey most of the way through the London tube system, plus a bit of a walk at the end. At least it'll work off the hideous 'breakfast' plus all that other rubbish we'd accumulated.

Cafe East is, apparently, run by a Korean man from Australia. It turned out to be a small hole-in-the-wall place, in the corner of a small suburb, completely unremarkable from the outside. It looks like any number of small, local, run down Chinese takeaways, with peeling paint and drab decor.

Oh, no. With all my childish enthusiasm, I had dragged A to this unknown corner of London, where, had it not been close to noon, we would probably have been mugged for our shoes. Gushing unsubstantiated rumours of a culinary utopia to a slightly skeptical A - who at best was humouring my greedy whims, and at worst might leave me to defend my honour with an umbrella, if the pho wasn't sublime - I sincerely hoped that all would turn out right.

Despite the (lack of) decor, the place was packed. Packed full of happy people slurping away at huge bowls of steaming noodle-soup. Yum! The place seats no more than 20 people. Even at 2pm, there was a queue of around 15-20 outside waiting their turn. Wow, this place had better be good!



Waiting in the howling wind wasn't pleasant, but our anticipation and the sunny, if slightly cold, weather more than made up for it. A table of 4 leaves, and the next in line are a couple of middle aged guys out for lunch. We ask if we can share their table, and get bumped up the queue. The others waiting are larger groups, so we don't feel too bad.

The two sitting across from us are regulars; Simon is from Hong Kong, and confides that while there are many decent Vietnamese restaurants in London, this place is exceptional.

The menu is not extensive. There is a selection of around 9 starter/side dishes, and a similar number of pho alternatives.



Simon and his Malaysia friend order a cheung fen like starter, and rare beef pho. Their starter looked great. It's very similar to cheung fen that you'd find as a dim sum: Rice starch sheets that have been steamed, and wrapped around a meat-based filling - in this case pork.



We went for the summer roll option (£4), not because it was unknown and exciting, but because it seemed like an obvious staple to sample.



Compactly wrapped with a sweet and slightly tangy dipping sauce topped with roasted peanuts, the rolls were refreshing, but slightly disappointing. Filled with bean threads, lettuce, a prawn and a thick slice of poached pork, from the cut it was obvious that the lettuce had been shredded a while ago, and starting to brown. The prawns were firm, but not terribly flavoursome, and the pork (wrapped opposite the prawns) was very light and tasty, but too delicate to carry the porcine fragrance for the whole roll. The serving was quite sizeable for two, and would probably be more sensibly shared between three.

A ordered the rare and slow-cooked beef pho (£6.50) and I opted for spicy beef (£6), just to be different.



Wow. The broth was so clean and full of beefy flavour. Unlike western beef stock, the broth didn't taste sharply of animal. Instead, it was mildly sweet with caramalised onion, slight anise tones and rich, complex and unmistakably beef. Delicious. The two bowls had, suprisingly, slightly different broth. A's was more anisey, and mine was, obviously, spicy, but also less herbal. The noodles were also slightly different. My spicy beef came with round rice noodles, like chinese mi fen - similar in thickness to spaghetti. A's rare and slow-cooked beef came with a narrow and flat noodle, similar to a tagiatelli. The servings were generous with delicious beef and plentiful noodles. The amazing broth was more than enough to satisfy our cravings.

I slightly regretted my choice, as A's rare beef was so tender and flavourful, while mine only had the single texture of slow-cooked shank. Nice, but I was still jealous. The heat of my broth was mild at first, but grew on the palate. After adding a spoonful of the chopped red chillies, I realised the folly of my actions. Soon both A and I were having trouble breathing. Quite adept at spice, I was beginning to go supernova. We suddenly wished for another helping of summer roll, to help mute the spice.



The pho was served with a side of bean sprouts, thai basil, chopped red chilies, and another unidentified herb that tasted... leafy. There were no condiments on the table, but that was no problem as it would have been a shame to adulterate the flavour of such a beautiful stock.

A big serving of summer roll, followed by two massive bowls of beautiful pho, plus two servings of green tea came to £17.50.