Viet Taste

Viet Taste offers you a wide range of Vietnamese food at very reasonable prices and they don’t skimp on the portions. The clean looking decor and overall feel of the restaurant will have you coming back for more. Click HERE for the entire review!

5721 Menaul Blvd NE, Albuquerque, NM 87110

OVERALL BITES:

Value: For me value comes down to portion and the quality of the food. Viet Taste offered you one heck of a portion and most plates around the $8-$9 range.

Taste: Viet Taste didn’t seem to add much salt to their food if at all. The table had Sriracha, soy sauce, and Teriyaki which I added to enhance the flavor of my meal and it made a world of difference.

Presentation: This is where Viet Taste stood out! The plating looked amazing. The shop looked clean, simple and elegant. The wait staff was also very presentable. Take a look at the pics below to see what I’m talking about.

Vibe: The overall vibe was pleasant. Most of the tables were full but considering it was an open dining area it wasn’t very loud. It was mellow and relaxing and it seemed like most people were enjoying their food.

Accessibility: Viet Taste is very easy to find. They are on the North side of Menaul between San Mateo and San Pedro. If you go during peak times you may have a hard time finding a parking space but even if you have to park on a side street they are worth the effort.

Review – Viet Taste

It was a Saturday afternoon and we had yet to have lunch. My partner was in town and we were looking for something different. I knew just the place – Viet Taste.

At 345 the restaurant was packed. I’m not just talking about the parking lot but also the restaurant itself. We waited about 10 minutes to be seated which we didn’t think was bad considering how busy they were. The staff did offer a long table in which we could have sat with another party but we decided to wait for our own table. The people that came after us decided to share the one we were offered.

Viet Taste has tables with a white table cloth and then they are covered with a white butcher type paper. Makes cleanup easy and also gives a nice consistent clean look when all you have to do is remove the paper. Their are some replica paintings on the wall which give the restaurant a very clean look and feel to it too.  The attention to detail was also nice to see. The lamp shades, a wicker type of arrangement, had small flowers in the inside of the lamp which you can see in the pictue above. The open dining area would suggest that it would make for a noisy environment but it was actually pretty calm and mellow.

We received our menus pretty quickly but it took almost 10 minutes for our drink order. Viet Taste has meals run from mid $7 to about $10 and appetizers for just under 5. We decided to go for the egg rolls, jasmine rice with chicken and shrimp, and I had the fried rice with pork, chicken, shrimp and imitation crab. I opted out of the crab and asked to replace with beef but was told I couldn’t so I just didn’t get the crab.

The egg rolls were light and crispy. You got two of them with the dipping sauce which is what I liked the most. It was very light, not syrupy, and it wasn’t too sweet. In fact, I ended up pouring it over my food which gave it a nice taste when I combined with the teriyaki and soy sauce. When I first bit into my meal it was missing a little salt. That’s why I ended up adding the other sauces. The sprouts, the meat, and the rice were all prepared very well and the food covered most of my plate.

The meal that stood out was my partner’s. She had the chicken and shrimp and it tasted excellent! Her food was grilled where it looked like my plate was done on the griddle. Her shrimp tasted better, her chicken was seasoned well, and the jasmine rice was also very good. When I go back I know which plate I’ll be ordering.

I loved the decor of the restaurant and the overall look and feel. I also loved the portion sizes which left me full most of the evening. Viet Taste gets 4 Bites!!! Like I mentioned before, they could have improved on the time it took to get our drink order and my meal could have used a bit more salt. Considering the prices and the portions and the overall vibe they are worth the trip.

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