Vietnamese restaurateurs seem to have a much more pragmatic approach to their business than their European counterparts. If a Vietnamese restaurant starts to do badly, it will be sold, given a slap of paint and re-opened in a matter of days rather than weeks. In Little Vietnam (at the Southern end of the Kingsland Road E2) the churn rate is quite awe-inspiring. A restaurant may be called Thang Loi one day, close and re-emerge as Mien Tay the next. What’s puzzling is the endless optimism of each successive proprietor because it is not as if what they offer is wildly different. And then there’s the question of the “market place effect”, in a couple of hundred yards the Kingsland Road boasts Mien Tay, Tay Do, Tay Do Café, Viet Grill, Viet Hoa, Song Que, Hanoi Café and several others. It’s jolly handy being able to pitch up on the Kingsland Road confident that you’ll get in somewhere but that theory only works when the menus of all the restaurants, and the quality of the cooking, remains broadly the same.

Mien Tay is a pleasant, clean, homely Vietnamese restaurant. There’s a long list of starters – the char-grilled pork balls with honey and spices stand out as does the fried spicy squids with salt pepper and garlic. Then the menu meanders off through salads; soups; special soups – Vietnamese sour soup with Mekong catfish sounds good. Onwards through a forest of dishes: sections on beef; poultry; duck; pork; lamb; goat; frog and eel; seafood and prawns; fish; and vegetable dishes. Then there are noodles, and pho variants – serious noodle soup. The Hue spicy beef rice vermicelli with beef and pork is a good and filling bowlful. Sound rather than spectacular. Then there’s a short list of rice vermicelli dishes. Such long menus are fairly daunting but it’s hard to say whether the menu at Mien Tay, or for that matter the cooking, is very different from that offered by Thang Loi its ill-fated predecessor. Prices are much the same as at the other eateries on the strip.

Only one thing is certain, should Mien Tay fail – and currently although it is one of the new kids on the block it seems to be doing good business – someone will quickly step into the breach and open another, very similar Vietnamese restaurant. Whatever the business plan you have to admire the optimism involved.

Charles Campion.

Mien Tay, 122 Kingsland Road, E2 (020 7729 3074)