Mr. Red Café
2680 West Broadway | 604-559-6878 | Facebook.com/MrRedVanCity
Open daily, 11am-9pm.
When Mr. Red opened a couple years ago on East Hastings, I fell in love with the lighter, fresher taste of the northern Vietnamese cuisine served up by owners Rose Nguyen and her husband, Hong Duong. The young couple had arrived in Vancouver with their two-year-old son the previous year and quickly realized that, while Vancouver did have a number of Vietnamese eateries, those focusing on the food of their home region (Hanoi) were practically non-existent. Thus Mr. Red (Duong’s family nickname) was born.
The only drawback was the size. The restaurant barely fits 20-odd people, and take-away became a large part of the business. Nonetheless, people would regularly line-up at lunch and dinner to eat the fragrant bún cha, a broth loaded with pork belly and meatballs, along with fresh herbs, bean sprouts and vermicelli, and laced with vinegar and fish sauce, as well as other favourites from the tiny kitchen.
With the opening of its second location in Kitsilano a few months ago, Nguyen and Duong now have a larger kitchen (and more seats) from which they offer an much-expanded menu (although still no liquor license). The food is based on family recipes that go back generations, and are typical of home-style meals from the region.
Look for a series of nourishing pho and bún, like the truly excellent house soup ($10) with vermicelli, shredded chicken, assorted mushrooms and minced pork balls. Northern Vietnamese cuisine favours the use of fresh herbs like cilantro, mint, Thai basil and lemon balm. These are added to the soup as per taste, along with fresh bean sprouts and cucumber.
The new menu also includes a series of traditional Vietnamese dumplings. The classic pyramidal rice dumpling ($5) is here, stuffed with minced pork and mushrooms around a perfectly-cooked quail’s egg. There’s also the odd but excellent pork and shrimp tapioca dumpling ($8). Steamed and wrapped in banana leaf, it’s aromatic, earthy and slightly sweet.
Whatever you do, do not skip the chicken wings ($6.50). Lightly spiced and deeply buttery, these are deep-fried to dark, sticky perfection on the outside and juicy plumpness in.
Service is friendly and knowledgeable, and though there are still a few kinks to work out timing-wise, the warmth and hospitality can’t be quibbled with.
The best deal is undoubtedly the family set meal; available on weekends. Two set menus (each is $37.50 for two people) includes green papaya salad, fried tofu with green onion in fish sauce, soup, steamed rice and salted eggplant, as well as a main like the caramelized fish in clay pot or grilled beef wrapped in betel leaf.
There is also a rotating list of additional sides, if you need a little more. Try the steamed and caramelized pork ribs ($13.50) or the salted bone-in chicken with ginger and garlic ($13.50). Deep-fried pork blood sausage ($12.50) might sound strange, but it’s magical. The special sides tend to be larger and can easily be shared between two or three people.
West Side residents will definitely appreciate Mr. Red’s unique and fresh take on northern Vietnamese food, but I think East Side fans of the original location will also be drawn to Kitsilano on a regular basis to take advantage of the expanded menu and space.
Food: ★★★★
Service: ★★★
Ambiance: ★★★★
Value: ★★★★
Overall: ★★★★
All ratings out of five stars.
*: Okay, nothing memorable.
**: Good, shows promise.
***: Very good, occasionally excellent.
****: Excellent, consistently above average.
*****: Awe-inspiring, practically perfect in every way.
Anya Levykh is a freelance food, drink and travel writer who covers all things ingestible. In addition to obsessively collecting cookbooks, she is a judge for the Vancouver Magazine Restaurant Awards. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @foodgirlfriday.
