Trang Viet Cuisine, Tampa, FL #2

It's amazing how different one visit can be to another. I guess that's the testament of a good chef -- consistently good; not good sometimes, but bad at other times. I thought about this a lot during my second visit to Trang Viet Cuisine in Tampa. The first visit was so great that we couldn't wait to eat here again. But, this visit just turned into a disappointment and now I feel torn!

We arrived at Trang Viet on a Wednesday afternoon immediately after flying into the Tampa airport. This is not a vegan Vietnamese place, but they have a lot of vegan dishes!

I decided to try some new dishes and maybe this is where I went wrong. I started with the V3 Vegan Summer Rolls, which were filled with vegetarian fiber, fresh herbs, lettuce, and rice noodles. But, they had very little flavor. The peanut sauce helped, but they had little flavor otherwise.

For my entree, I ordered the V42 Vegan Noodle Stir-Fry with yellow noodles. This stir fry had carrots, broccoli, onions, and tofu with noodles in a light sauce. The problem was that it just wasn't very good. I just sat looking at my dish and wishing for something different.

Chris ordered what I ordered the last time, the V35 Vegan Lemongrass Beef Noodles, but this time he didn't like it.  He also didn't want to finish it because it lacked flavor. Where were the flavorful sauces these dishes needed?

We were both disappointed with our meals and with it being about 25 minutes from the airport, we felt like we went out of our way for nothing. Oh, and once again, the wine was pretty awful. Can't they just buy one good wine?  I'm not sure that we will return, but then again, with the lack of vegan options in Tampa, who knows. Sigh.

Previous review
May 7, 2015

Trang Viet Cuisine
1524 East Fowler Avenue
Tampa, FL 33612
(813) 979-1464