Nguyen's busy for good reason

Last time we ate in this corner location it was a different restaurant and they were throwing food at us, or rather, our plates, with impressive accuracy. It was one of those not very Japanese showtime teppanyaki places. Now, it's Bistro Nguyen's, and we're considerably more at ease.

Nguyen's owners haven't overspent on decor in this small space, but they have tried to mix it up with old mismatched chairs, with one wall turned into a big line drawing, a fairy light festooned bike in a corner, and big tubes of bamboo standing against a wall. Bamboo, even dried and chopped, has such a positive vibe, reminding you of phenomenal growth, spring and health.

We're focused on bamboo just now because we've been measuring its growth at home with a kind of aghast and deep admiration. It shot from the ground a month ago and is heading skywards initially at a shocking 10cm a day, now higher than 1.8 metres.

To take the comparison a smidgin more than it survives, there is a considerable sense of energy, bustle and activity also at Nguyen's. It's clearly popular, with people queueing in the middle of the restaurant for takeaways and to pay, while others at tables for a quick and inexpensive Vietnamese meal, and a steady stream of new arrivals, so the person at the till seems busier than anyone. They're advertising lunch banh mi sandwiches also, which I can imagine would be an easy thing to grab in the middle of the day.

If you are a regular at Nguyen's you probably have your favourite dishes, and head straight to them, not traverse the menu as we do with a wide-ranging and incoherent order.

The roll-your-own beef skewers are a dish we would return for. They're easy to like, four skewers, with noodles, loads of lettuce, Vietnamese mint, bean sprouts and peanuts – and four rice papers and a dipping sauce to construct your own. There's definitely a technique to this, probably some nifty equipment that helps. For us, the result is always messy and very unprofessional, but the simplicity and good sense of this dish a good thing, and Nguyen's sticks faithfully to the freshness at its core.

Another dish to which we would certainly reorder is "special broken rice" ($14.50), which comes with grilled pork chop, crab cake, pork skin, pickled vegies, served with and nuoc mam, to which we add a fried egg ($1.50). The pork chop is massively popular at our table, sweet and juicy.

The crab cake is a likeable eggy square with pungent mushrooms. And the pork skin is surprising – not crisped to a pleasing crunch, but shredded and pale like vermicelli, tasting like firm and chewy noodles, with a salty crumb, this part lending the dish a funky edge.

Crispy skin chicken with egg noodles comes dry or as soup ($13.50). The soup is a huge bowl, not a light broth, but mouth-filling and tinged with spice, with a plate of sliced chicken alongside. We order home-style calamari with herbs ($18.50), not a dish that would normally catch our eye but one that tonight screams must eat.

Nguyen's stir-fried calamari with turmeric, coconut cream, herbs and coriander is a mild version, full of vegies - onion, mushrooms, carrot and chilli, with noodles, not a dish of wild interest, but I guess that's not what we went in this direction for.

Soft-shell crab, fried to crisp golden brown with nuoc cham sauce ($18.50) is rejected by one of our group as too greasy, but I kind of like it nevertheless. It's a big pile of whole battered and fried crabs and plenty of salt.

We're order a Vietnamese iced coffee with condensed milk ($5.50), as you do. It's sweet, cold, bitter and we like it, despite the weird method of serving it in a jar.

The Vietnamese rainbow dessert ($7.50) is also odd, and more tricky to come to terms with. I'm not sure what we're supposed to do with the big cap of coconut-flavoured ice on top so we shove it on to another plate, and dig deep for the whole beans and the bean paste further down. We're searching for them among coloured jelly in green, red and blue strands. One of those incomprehensible desserts.

It's easy to understand why Nguyen's is busy. It has some enjoyable food, plenty of interest in the menu, and an energy in the space.