My perception of Vietnamese food is that if there is an insufficient use of MSG it generally comes up pretty tasteless. Well, my perception changed once I had the chance to try the food at Orange Lantern recently.

The layout is a very simple setting brightened up with orange lanterns which seems to be the theme of the restaurant. I started out with an avocado shake which was surprisingly very refreshing. It did not have the thickness that most avocado shake ($5.90) had and this is due to the evenly mixed crushed ice within the drink that does not seem to melt until consumed. I can see why this is a crowd favourite as there were customers around me who were having their fix.

Down to the food, I thought I would try the Beef Noodles Set B1 ($17.90) as it would allow me to try a range of items the restaurant offered. The mango salad was interestingly mixed with dried prawn paste and created a very nice mix of flavours of sour and sweet - a novelty indeed.

The next set of appetisers involved a group of three items. I started with the light vermicilli with bacon chips which was very pleasant. The crispy fish net roll was not overly fried and had the typical Vietnamese light touch. The prawn bread toast meanwhile was tasty although the prawn was a tad hard.

The core item that I was there to try though was the beef pho whose soup had been cooked for over 18 hours. This was a gem because it showed that one do not need to use excessive MSG in order to get tasty soup - just lots of hard work. The beef was also tender which was a strong plus and the only setback was that the noodles tend to soak up the soup very fast so if one does not eat it quickly there is less soup to enjoy.

Overall though I was rather impressed with the food and I look forward to returning to have more pho.