Viva Brighton Issue #50 April 2017

FOOD REVIEW
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Holy Phok
Casual street food with a two-week waiting list
It is very probably easier to book
a seat on a flight to Hanoi than
it is to get one at Holy Phok, the
22-seat, super-hip, Vietnamese
eatery on Lansdowne Place. Four
months after opening the place
is still packed, and I’ve waited a
fortnight for this table for two at
six o’clock on a Wednesday night.
Try as I might to get a third person
added closer to the day (I thought
you might appreciate me taking
a meat-eater along, as I hear the
chicken pho is truly life enhancing),
they take a hard line on not
overcrowding their diners, and
fellow Viva vegetarian Rebecca
had already called dibs. The menu
might be casual street-food dining
but the protocol, if you want to
avoid disappointment, is strictly call
ahead. Two weeks ahead.
We start our meal sharing an order
of ‘vesto’ - a pesto-style dip made
with coriander instead of basil and
peanuts in the place of pinenuts,
with a good kick of garlic and
chilli. It’s served with vast sesame
rice crackers - all the better to
shovel it in. Rebecca is the office
bao bun expert and orders the (vegan) ‘bao wow
tofu’ - two springy steamed buns stuffed with
crispy marinated tofu, pickled carrots, cucumber,
beansprouts and both peanuts and chilli sauce.
Tofu can be underwhelming but, in this case, the
wow of the bao is justified. Even the side of Vietnamese
herb slaw is packed with zesty flavours
and, whilst I know it’s rude to repeatedly help
yourself to another person’s food,
I have decided that she who writes
the review gets to graze all plates.
And I do.
It is, in my experience, very hard
to clear your plate when using
chopsticks but I doggedly chase the
last few peanuts around my ‘mockthe-squid’
noodle bowl. It’s one of
those clever dishes where a thing is
masquerading as another thing. In
this instance it’s oyster mushrooms,
dredged in a turmeric-and-five-spice
mixture, and fried until crispy. They
turn out to be an upgrade on calamari
which, in my memory, was so often
like rubbery washers. The ‘mock
squid’ is piled on cool vermicelli noodles,
pickled vegetables, mint, basil
(the aniseed Thai variety), coriander
and lime dressing. The mixture of
tastes, textures and temperatures is
mouth-watering. The flavours are as
bright on the tastebuds as the neon
lights are against the dark teal walls.
For dessert we share a salty fudge
brownie - pleasingly more salt than
sweet - and chilli chocolate ice cream.
As we’ve been eating, 40 golden
fortune cats have been waving
down from the wall, neatly regimented around
cerulean neon letters spelling ‘YOU LUCKY
CATS’. Now I get what all the fuss is about. But
it’s not luck you’ll need to eat at Holy Phok.
It’s patience.
Lizzie Lower
52 Lansdowne Place (entrance on Western Road)
01273 911551 holyphok.com
Photos by Lizzie Lower
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