Saigon Corner used to be one of THE best places to eat in Palmerston North. Getting a table, especially on the weekend, was nearly impossible and wait times can often range from 30 to 60 minutes.
Unfortunately, with the new owners, everything amazing about this...place has gone. What is left in its place, is basic, generic, tasteless "food".
We'd ordered our three favourites - waterfall chicken, pork and prawn noodle soup, and grilled chicken sticky rice. While we weren't expecting the new owners to make it exactly the same as the previous ones, what was served to us was so bad that that we didn't even need to try to compare.
The waterfall chicken has lost the 3 distinct flavours that made it special - from the rice, to the chicken, and the salad. What's being plated up now is bland and pathetic. The chicken, which used to be grilled to perfection with a crispy skin and strong taste, is now replaced with a tasteless boiled or steamed product. The sticky rice chicken too, has lost all the flavours, and just like the former, the chicken seem boiled or steamed, rather than grilled. The pork and prawn noodle soup was okay. The flavours were bland, but some people might like it like that. My main issue with it was the fact that the dish was 99% noodles with a sad, almost token serving of pork and prawns.
But the saddest thing of all is how the food was made. In the old Saigon Corner, the kitchen was constantly buzzing and it was obvious that a small army of chefs were in there making the food. But now, the food was all microwaved and as a result, just absolutely tasteless and souless.
Not going back ... ever.More