Cheap eats at Green Lemongrass Vietnamese Cuisine

The Asian decor clashes with the not-very-Asian looking counter and wall of wooden planks, and feels like it used to be something else, but has since become a Vietnamese restaurant. It is otherwise pretty simple and brightly lit. The outside makes it look newer and more modern than it is on the inside.

Service is okay, and more or less on par with the rest of the East Vancouver neighborhood of cheap eats and Chinese restaurants.

A1 Chả Giò ($5) spring rolls - Crispy rolls filled with pork, carrot, taro, mushroom, and onions. Served with nước mâm.

• Oily spring rolls with some sort of thin sauce (fish sauce?).
• Too oily to recommend. Flavour sort of weak and not helped by the dipping sauce at all.
• In the unfortunate case where you've ended up with this, try the sriracha sauce or the small pot of (hot) chili sauce on the table.

T23 Hư Tiêu Đó Biển Chua Cay ($8 small bowl or $9 large bowl) seafood, tomato, and pineapple in a spicy tamarind soup

• Even the "small" bowl is pretty decently sized that you might not need to get a large bowl, especially if you are having an appetizer.
• "Spicy", but not very hot-spicy. To get more heat, add some of the chili sauce in the small pot on the table. But watch out as that is very hot.
• There's an interesting sweetness here, probably boiled out of the pineapple chunks, which are therefore much less flavourful than fresh chunks of pineapple.
• There isn't much of each type of seafood, but there's definitely a variety, including squid and prawns. Good sized prawns used.
• Overall, a nice moderately filling meal and really tasty, though some of the filling feeling does come from the quantity of soup.

If you know what to order (or at least avoid any oily deep fried stuff), this is a clean place for cheap eats.