Lunch at Little V in Rotterdam

On one of the hot summer days, I wanted to eat fried noodles and I ended up at the Little V, a Vietnamese restaurant in Rotterdam city centre. I have never been there before, but while passing by their pretty outdoor terrace, I noticed their colorful drinks and delicious smelling food. I am not totally unfamiliar with Vietnamese food, as I had Vietnamese spring rolls and summer rolls before. But many things on the menu were something that I didn't know what they were and how they look like, so I just had to hope for the best. 

Me and the person who I was with picked out a table on the outer side of the outdoor terrace, looking directly at the beautiful entrance of the Little V restaurant. While we were reading the menu, we were offered some water and due to how hot it was, we kindly accepted the offer. When the water arrived, we saw that it was bottled water and it felt a bit forced on us. I know that restaurants need to get their profits from the drinks, but we were planning to order one of the lemonades and iceteas later on. In the end, I had to finish the bottle of water on top of it, as we paid for it.  

I ordered the Flavour of the moment fresh lemonade (€3.50), which was a cold and refreshing lemonade made with lemon, mint, and passion fruit. The lemon flavor wasn't strong enough for me, but the mint flavor was mellow, not too sharp (some mint leaves were a bit too black though) and the passion fruit flavor was present (notice the passion fruit seeds at the bottom). The other drink is the Dragon Lady (€4.50), which is an oriental mix of fresh watermelon and ginger with green tea. It didn't say so in the description, but there are also pieces of lime in there. 

We ordered two starters and the first one was the Bo La Lot (grilled beef in vine leaves, €5.50). It sounded delicious, but the three pieces were as small as my thumb and the ground beef filling was very dry. I also couldn't taste the vine leaves very well. 

The Chao Tom (shrimp paste wrapped around sugar canes, €6) tasted better, but the dish was a bit small for what you pay for it.

As our mains, we ordered the Bahn Mi with beef (Vietnamese baguette with hot filling, €6) and the Mixgrill 2 (grilled chicken, beef skewer, and lamb chop with white rice, €13.50 +€2 to change the white rice to fried rice or fried noodles) to share.

The bread of the Bahn Mi was warm and the crust was still a bit crispy. Inside, there were assorted vegetables and herbs and grilled beef pieces. It was a little bit spicy and I really like the flavors. It is not very expensive either. It made me wish I skipped the starters and bought two of these for takeout instead.

The Mixgrill 2 dish is served on a flat tray covered with a sheet of baking paper. You get a reasonably big piece of grilled chicken, a thin and long piece of grilled beef on a skewer, and a grilled lamb chop. The meat were all nicely seasoned and they were quite tasty. Out of the three, I surprisingly liked the tender grilled chicken the most. The fried noodles were great too. They were really similar to Chinese fried egg noodles and I love those. It was exactly what I came for. The waitress had accidentally changed it to fried rice and asked me if that was okay too, but I insisted on it and hoped that they could still change it to noodles. Luckily, it was still possible. 

In total, we paid €44.35 for the lunch. After some calculating, the bottle of water should be €3.35. I actually feared the worst, as some restaurants charge up to €7 for a bottle of special imported mineral water. It kind of ruined my mood during the lunch. It is still a lot of money for something we didn't intentionally order. When they asked me, I expected a small cup of cold tap water, since some surrounding clothes stores were handing out paper cups with water out of fear that customers might faint from the heat. I thought it was only to keep us hydrated, until our ordered drinks arrive. But I should know better, as most restaurants ask if you want water and then bring you bottled water of their choice. It is also the case with some ice cream shops, where they ask you if you want whipcream on your ice cream without telling you that you need to pay extra for that. I keep falling for that too.