Co Do Vietnamese Restaurant, Richmond

Recently, Tim and I went to dinner at one of his favourite haunts - Co Do Vietnamese restaurant in Victoria Street, Richmond, Victoria. For the uninitiated, if you love Vietnamese food, then Victoria Street will be your idea of heaven - it is virtually wall to wall Vietnamese restaurants, and the hard part is choosing which one to try.

Tim discovered Co Do in the Qantas Australian Way magazine, and first went there with his friend Steve. They've been going back ever since.

On the night in question, I let Tim do the ordering (as he's the expert on this one), and we had his favourite dishes from the Co Do menu.

The first dish, pictured at the top of this post, is spicy quail. As the name of the dish suggests, it is quail in a spicy (but not too spicy!) sauce. It comes with crisp but nondescript vegetables, which I assume are there solely to help you to soak up the remaining sauce and to cleanse the palate. Tim and I shared this dish for entree, as there are 4 pieces of quail. This is a fabulous dish that is literally finger licking good, but if you are a messy eater, beware the splashes of sauce on your clothes - or hey, just wear old clothes, and no-one will care.




The next dish is broken rice - perched atop a bed of steamed rice are a fried egg, a slice of sausage meat, a slice of pork and noodles, with a few crispy veges on the side. (Which again I can only assume are meant to be palate cleansers, as they really don't add to the dish.) If you order this, be sure to crack the egg yolk over the rice so as to taste the gooey rich goodness. There was a lot of sauce-less rice, so to give it a kick, I squirted mine with barbecue sauce. I am pretty sure this is not a traditional Vietnamese thing to do, but it tasted good, and Tim liked this tip.

The meals at Co Do are filling, delicious, and don't cost a bomb. It is BYO, so you can take whatever alcohol takes your fancy. The green tea is served in a thermos, which I think is a great idea, because there is nothing worse than bitter, cold green tea. As a bonus, if you are a karaoke fan and speak Vietnamese, the restaurant plays Vietnamese karaoke in the background. The service is efficient and friendly, the space is roomier than many Vietnamese restaurants on the same strip, and it is the kind of place that you can bring children with no problems (and there were quite a few with their families on the night). Overall, Co Do gets a thumbs up from me.

Co Do
196 Victoria St
Richmond 3121 VIC
Ph: (03) 9421 2418