Pho bo and banh mi star in Vietnamese-influenced eatery Lo Quay

NEW RESTAURANT

Lo Quay 88 Amoy Street Singapore 069907 Tel: 3129-7556 Open for lunch and dinner Mon to Fri: 12 pm to 2.30 pm; 6 pm to 11 pm. Dinner only on Sat.

WHEN it comes to Vietnamese food, this is what we know: pho bo and banh mi. After a meal at Lo Quay, described as a journey through the colourful culinary heritage of head chef Quynh Brown, what else did we learn about Vietnamese food?

Still pho bo and banh mi.

Cue head-scratching emoji. Much as we love what she has done with these classics, you don’t dangle promises of reimagined traditional dishes and stop at just two. This is no time to practise recipe family planning. This is about having three or a lot more, because you can well afford to.

And good as she is, Brown ought to take the opportunity to carve her own niche in this cooking realm, not tuck paltry snippets into a menu that has more roots in Nobu than Ho Chi Minh City.

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Lo Quay is the latest in the musical-chairs restaurant game in Amoy Street. The unit used to house burger joint Carne, then American-Italian California Republic, and now it’s changed its passport to Vietnam, albeit one still held by the same owner, Dandy Collective.

The decor has been tweaked from too-dark-can’t-see retro American living room, to an a-bit-brighter-not-much, art gallery-like space. The walls are covered with artwork – a young girl carrying a chicken and snake, paintings tracing the chef’s life growing up in her homeland in the mid-80s.

Lo Quay (pronounced “lo kway”, which means “discover”) has the right manifesto – plumbing the depths of one’s own culture within a modern, fine-dining context.

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Seeing how we’re so hard up for any kind of good Vietnamese food in Singapore, Lo Quay has zero competition and all the potential to set new standards. But the execution falls short with a menu that leans towards generic pan-Asian, with Japanese ingredients and a couple of Vietnamese twists, instead of the other way around.  

Maybe old habits die hard. Brown is clearly a chef of some standing, but she brings with her a style honed by her years of career-building at Nobu branches around the US, and subsequently at Zuma’s mod-izakayas in the Middle East and Hong Kong. Being new to Singapore, she’s perhaps not yet attuned to local whims and the insatiable appetite for food that makes a connection. We already have Nobu and every iteration of it. But Lo Quay just gives us more. 

There are good sides, starting with a S$138 Discover menu, which is not a dealbreaker, and also because it has pho and banh mi on it. These are not in the a la carte menu, which has dishes translated into Vietnamese, but is littered with words such as onsen egg, XO chimichurri, aji amarillo, miso, katsu – you get the picture. 

There is also very good service, because the senior executives are on the floor and no effort is spared. We feel comfortable and very welcome. 

At face value, the food is more than adequate. Your palate is shocked into life by a mouth-puckering soursop sorbet, but a mellow wedge of marinated Japanese Amela tomato rescues you with a savoury, fruity mellowness that balances it all out.

Nobu-leaning amberjack slices curl up in a tart Japanese umezuke; spicy wagyu tartare fills out a crisp rice cracker; a choux puff is stuffed with a scallop mixture and ikura – they’re all easy pleasing bites in a six-part snack fest.

If you’re taking baby steps towards alternative meat, a deep-fried jackfruit croquette will almost, but not quite convince you – starting with a satisfying crunchy exterior and piping hot interior that tastes meaty initially, then cools off to reveal its true beany, gluten-y self. A fruity tomato tamarind jam on top helps to distract.

A large Japanese oyster which must have taken ample time working out and building up its “mussel” mass sees its efforts hidden under a thick blanket of Hollandaise sauce said to hide some bone marrow, but we don’t see or taste anything beyond the hot, gratinated custard. It’s nice in its own way, but what a pity to smother a fresh oyster like that.

There’s also whole shrimp studded with puffed rice and deep-fried crisp to the point that you’re told you can eat everything, from the beady-eyed head to the tail. There are some tempura chefs who can pull that off. Here, unless chewing cable ties is a hobby, watch out for your teeth. The prawns are topped with a not-bad homemade, chunky XO sauce.

But the real event is worth waiting for. Some heart and soul definitely goes into the wagyu pho – an intense broth fragrant with tangerine peel, the golden brew poured into a too-small ceramic cup. The heat gently cooks a thin slice of meat and other bits, such as crispy deep-fried tripe and a crinkly offal cracker. An onsen quail egg finishes it off. They need to serve buckets of this, a la carte, and watch the crowds roll in.

Banh mi is also an elegant affair, where the ubiquitous sandwich is remoulded as a mini Beef Wellington, with buttery soft pastry encasing savoury pork liver pate and salty-sour cucumber pickle to take the heft off. This is one time when a supplementary slice of pan-fried foie gras (S$16) really lifts it.

It’s a fairly short menu because the main course comes next. In our case, it’s fluffy-fleshed deep-fried sea bass, doused in a genre-neutral, bitter-sour-sweet honey orange sauce that works pretty well. Dessert is Vietnamese tiramisu with a duo of condensed milk and espresso ice cream over torn coffee sponge.

Lo Quay still has some runway to lift off, which will come in time, as Brown eases into her first headlining venture. She needs to not play things safe – and above all, Lo Quay needs to be a lot less low-key.

Rating: 6.5