Ha Long Bay, Disappointing Vietnamese

One of my first rotations in residency was the nursery at Women's Hospital at HSC. Some days and nights on call I would stare across the street and see the large bright sign for Ha Long Bay. During those long nights with multiple deliveries or sick patients, I could not help but wish I had some delicious comforting pho waiting for me. But alas I had to settle for hospital food. When I moved to Children's Hospital for the rest of my rotations, the dream of Ha Long Bay drifted away. That is, until I frequented on Urbanspoon and was reminded again of its tantalizing food. Therefore, on a day off, after running some errands, I made the trek out to Ha Long Bay.

The restaurant is located on a busy stretch of Notre Dame Avenue. Situated directly across from the Women's Hospital and Brodie Centre, it attracts numerous hospital staff and patients. Arriving just prior to noon, I was impressed by how busy the restaurant was. Thankfully the wait staff was attentive and quickly ushered me to my seat.

Ha Long Bay touts itself as serving Vietnamese & Chinese Cuisine. The menu betrays their namesake and offers pure Vietnamese food. The bright and colourful menu has the basics all would expect from the noodle soups to the stir fried rices and noodles. It was obvious the restaurant was pandering to its large lunch-time crowd by offering a number of "combination plates" designed to give a premium of food at a reasonable price.

I started off with Summer Rolls. Two large rice paper rolls filled with vegetables, Vermicelli, shrimp and pork, this was a nice start to the meal. The accompanying peanut and Hoison sauce was a nice contrast to the delicate rolls.

I am adamant that a Vietnamese restaurant is measured by their pho. Unfortunately, Ha Long Bay's Sliced Beef & Beef Balls Noodle Soup (Pho) was a huge disappointment. To start, the broth lacked any depth of flavour and was devoid of the usual richness you would find in a pho broth. The few scant pieces of beef were tough, chewy and barely edible. The beef balls, thinly cut to fool the customer into believing there were lots, were even worse and had an accompanying metallic irony aftertaste. Finally the bean sprouts tasted old and lacked any freshness.

Thankfully their next offering was better. Sizzling Shrimp with Vegetables was served on a hot plate and brought the entire restaurant to stare when the sizzle of the dish declared its appearance. A mixture of vegetables and shrimp are fried together in a sweet soy sauce, this was innumerably better than their pho.

There were a nice assortment of tender vegetables and a moderate amount of springy shrimp. The sauce itself was nice in bringing all the flavours to the fore and went very well with an accompanying bowl of rice. Overall this was simply average and did not have any components that excited or impressed me.

Overall Ha Long Bay was a major disappointment. Bland tasteless broth with borderline inedible beef make this one of the worst versions of pho I have come across in Winnipeg. I cannot help but wonder if this restaurants' popularity is solely a reflection of its location rather than its food. There are simply vastly superior Vietnamese options in Winnipeg (and in the extreme vicinity of Health Sciences Centre) and therefore I cannot, for whatever reason, recommend Ha Long Bay.