Friday, August 23, 2013

Xich Lo, a Vietnamese Restaurant in Oslo City Center

My wife and I are big fans of the Vietnamese cuisine. We have never been to Vietnam but we have tasted Vietnamese food in both France and Japan and had some nice experiences with it in both countries.

This is why we decided to try Xich Lo as soon as we heard positive comments about it. The restaurant is in Karl Johans gate (so you cannot do more central than this) and is on the 4th floor of a building with Nespresso on the first floor (just some help if you look for it).

Otherwise the restaurant is pretty and quite "classy". We were received at once and followed to the table. Before we even order anything, we get some water (flavored with lemon, orange and some herbs) and when we ordered, to make us wait, we got the following appetizer:

Vietnamese style beef stew - complimentary

It tasted really nice. The Vietnamese taste was rendered by the spices and despite the chili at the top, it wasn't hot. My wife removed the small chili part and had no problems eating it.

As a starter, we shared a "springroll"

Vietnamese Springrolls, 87 NOK

It was actually a combination of 2 fried springrolls (the usual ones) and 1 "fresh" springroll (cut in 2). Both type of rolls tasted good and at least the fresh one was hand made.

My wife ordered a lamb tenderloin with red wine sauce as a main:

Lamb tenderloin with red wine sauce, 257 NOK

It was good but it did not seem traditional Vietnamese to us (we may be wrong though, we are not Vietnamese). As for me, I went for the duck breast a la Xich Lo:

Duck breast a la Xich Lo, 257 NOK

The duck meat was really nice: soft, tasty but not too strong and I really appreciated it. I liked the sauce too but it was spicy and after a while, I couldn't take it anymore. I wasn't particularly impressed by the mushrooms but I may be too demanding about it.

Both dishes came with flavored rice::

Flavored rice, incl in the dish

Overall, we had a nice meal and we are satisfied with it. The prices are a bit high, but this has something to do with the restaurant being right in the heart of Oslo

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