Vietnamese food at The William

Thanks all for giving me the locations - can't wait to visit both soon.

myco wrote:

We use the free delivery service and the food is always great. We always go for the Pho (noodle soup) with herbs for mains and fresh rolls with chilli & garlic sauce for starters. Being Vietnamese ourselves, i rate this place for food- although not the best settings- the food is well flavoured and ingredients are most often fresh.

Presumably the delivery service doesn't have far to travel to reach you, myco, given that you are the proprietor(?)/manager(?)/landlord(?) or similar?

What a shame that you have chosen to mislead people. If you'd responded to the original message, been upfront about your affiliation to the William and Pacific Kitchen, and explained a bit about the food and services you offer, everyone would have been happy.

Thank you to the forum user who reported this thread and shared their suspicions with me. A quick check back through old emails revealed that myco had previously been in touch with me to get The William and Pacific Kitchen listed on this site.

Proprietors and managers of local businesses are very welcome to participate in this forum, providing they do so honestly. Is that really so much to ask?!

Hi James

Thanks for your message, although your principle is valid, however I'm not the proprietor/ owner/ manager of Pacific Kitchen at all!

I do know the owners on a personal level and offered to help them promote themselves online- as the lady who does own it has no access to the Internet, etc...

I want to see a good honest place do well.

But sorry, I'm NOT the owner/ manager of Pacific Kitchen.

myco

You're splitting hairs, and I must assume you know it. James' point is that you have a conncetion with the place and you should have told people about that.

OK, fair enough. But I still think someone who is closely enough connected to a restaurant to send out emails on its behalf in the first person containing phrases like "We have a cosy little gastro pub", "We'd be delighted to have you down to try out some of the Vietnamese dishes" and "our address is" ought to be upfront about the fact that they are not just an independent satisfied customer.

If you'd said "I'm a friend of the owners and I help them with PR and marketing" that would be fine. Everyone knows where they stand and no-one is misled.

We ordered delivery from the Pacific Kitchen tonight, and it was rather disappointing. We ordered at 6.45 and we didn't receive our food until 9pm! We called several times to ask where our food was, and we were repeatedly told that the order was "on the way" and the delivery driver was "right outside". When the food did arrive, the mixd hors d'ouevre was missing the advertised fishcakes, but the prawn, pork and spring roll appetisers were quite nice. The lemongrass beef with rice noodles and the chicken with lemongrass and peanuts were both tasty, but being cooked two hours previously to delivery, they were dry and cold by the time they arrived. While the food was good, I don't think there's any excuse for the slow delivery, given that we're only 5 minutes from the restaurant! The shoddy way we were treated when we called to ask where our food was has definately put me off ordering from the Pacific Kitchen again, unless I'm prepared to collect it myself!

I have to ask - is the place still open? I've tried to contact and book the place for a meal but no response - and it always looks shut.

they are open Monday, Wednesday, Friday and weekends, from 5.30pm... They close Tuesdays and Thursdays... that might be why you haven't had much luck? m

Went on Friday night, 8.00pm booking. When we turned up we were the only people there, the TV in the bar was blaring Euro Pop, and the waitress asked if we also wanted the big TV on. Not good, but what really prompted our departure was that the whole place smelt of urinals. Can't comment on the food, as we left and went and ate a brilliant meal at Simply Indian, but the ambiance was non-existent.

We went Sat night, and as with the last poster we were the only punters there, except for the Europop TV and a very nice waiter. No smell of urinals.

In any case, the food is very very good indeed, possibly better than anything we've had on Kingsland Road (where we go almost weekly for our Vietnamese) = Beef Pho was excellent, using real stock and very fresh ingredients - claypot pork was very succulent and well spiced. Plus they serve morning glory - always nice.

This place is well worth trying if you haven't done so already - the atmosphere isn;t great, but surely it needs residents to assist on that front?

(No affiliations with the owners etc )