Au Lac - Da Lat

Really good food, incredible flavours, a real authentic Vietnamese venue with lots of options. NOTE NOT FULLY VEGAN: my friend and I went to grab a creme caramel looking dessert from the fridge to which the lady serving us ran over and informed us that there was milk in it.

The pho rice noodle soup is fab and comes with a couple different mock meats as well as chilli/garnish to add to your taste. The veg broth was not overly oily too. We went on 2 separate occasions and got different customer experiences each time. We were not acknowledged or given a menu the first time as they were super busy the with many Locals eating and ordering for takeaway. The second time, the older lady was very smiley and welcoming.

No word of a lie, the “spicy beef noodle soup” I ate here has to be the BEST thing I have ever eaten in my life!! Sounds like a major over exaggeration, but you have to try it for yourself! The most flavoursome broth, rice noodles, veg and mock meats. It was a big portion and only 30K! Full of locals so you may have to share a table, but super worth it.

I got given the menu as soon as I sat down, and the woman just stares and expects me to order there and then, so I ask if I can have a minute to look at the menu but she doesn’t know English. I noticed locals get their food very fast but I think that’s cause they know their order already. Buffet option too but I tend to stay away as they’re usually cold. Ordered 1 fresh spring roll which was good and considerably bigger than the fried spring roll that I didn’t like, it’s like it deep fried so much you can’t taste anything inside. Ordered the rice noodles with veg (35k) for a main, it was very nice but I don’t think they were rice noodles. Good mock meat with it too. Great price, cost me 48k. I’d go back.

I’m really sad to write this as I the girl serving us was so nice and helpful that I wanted everything to be perfect. The restaurant on the outside states everywhere vegetarian, happy cow currently states vegan as of 2020, we asked the waitress and she said it was vegan. However, there is fried egg on the menu. We ignored that thinking that it was maybe vegan egg and just order safe in case. My husbands meal of fried noodles veg contained egg, we think within one of the mock meats (maybe the beef one? . We know this as he has a severe egg allergy and had an instant allergic reaction. We should have asked, but we thought as it’s vegan it wouldn’t be an issue… It’s hard to discuss this with them, we’ve had it so many times before where people are adamant there’s no egg, but it’s a sneaky ingredient they’ve missed, or they’ve cooked on the same pan as a fried egg. It’s hard to explain with language barriers. So we didn’t, we just said he was Ill from something else, but they didn’t charge us for that dish as he’d only had one bite. Which was unexpected and very sweet. The food here is good, if only it were all 100% vegan. The mock meat skewers we had that were fine were: ‘Chicken’ lemongrass this was very good!! A flat square one I also had the pho, which was good, but also had the beef mock meat which may have been the egg culprit Updated from previous review on 2022 11 30