Vietnamese restaurant fails to deliver
by Sam Mickell 
Auckland doesn’t have many restaurants that you can walk in to at the last minute and get cheap, delicious food accompanied by fast service.
Following numerous recommendations about Newmarket’s Hansan Vietnamese Restaurant, I thought I was on to a winner.
Tucked away down the road from the Nuffield Street development, Hansan offers a generously proportioned and well lit – almost bordering on sterile – environment for the diner short on time and cash.
The menu is vast, and thankfully – for novices of Vietnamese cuisine – accompanied by pictures of the meals.
Myself and a friend ordered satay chicken as an entrée, followed by spicy chicken noodle soup and a prawn and garlic stir fry.
Unfortunately, when the food arrived it suddenly became apparent that given the choice between investing money into either glossy menus or employing a chef that could make food resembling the pictures, they had chosen glossy menus.
While the satay chicken was pleasant, it lacked the tang of the Thai version, the spicy chicken noodle soup was bland and the stirfry was drowning in garlic; the prawns seemed a mere afterthought by the chef, or were meant to be a garnish.
In consolation, the service was quick, the waiting staff polite, and the cleanliness was standout.
And at $29 for two, the price was hardly anything to complain about either.
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