• We're still the only Western managed, air conditioned, tourist café in Ha Noi. (translation – you get what you actually ordered this week or before)

• All our food is cooked in stainless steel, we don't use MSG & we purchase our veggies from an organic vegetable farm whenever possible.  Our customers say that you really can taste the difference.  

Dining Out, (26-02-2006)

Kangaroo Cafe still hopping on Bao Khanh

The only ‘western-managed tourist cafe in Ha Noi,’ Kangaroo Cafe offers hearty Aussie and Vietnamese meals, deep mugs of coffee and reliable tourist services. James W Coates reports.

In my persistent search for Ha Noi’s perfect cup of coffee, I stumbled across Kangaroo Cafe. Owned and operated by Australian Max Hart, I was delighted to find in this "only western managed tourist cafe in Ha Noi", exactly what I had been looking for –a big mug filled to the brim with thick delicious steaming hot coffee.

Sure, I enjoy the Vietnamese traditional drip coffee, served in thimble cups and strong enough to keep you awake for days on end, which is, incidentally, about as long as it takes to finish dripping! But sometimes I just want a big mug to wrap my hands around.  Leafing through the menu on my first visit some time ago, I found that Kangaroo Cafe is much more than a big mug of coffee; the food is also tasty and varied. And in my two and a half years eating at this place since that first time, I have had the chance to try just about every dish on the menu, from tantalising Vietnamese stir fried vegetables and noodles, to the tender Vietnamese-style fried steak with dolphin-shaped mashed potatoes, to the thick and juicy Aussie burger, accompanied by a hearty salad with crisp, crunchy tomatoes, carrots and lettuce in a zesty vinaigrette and chunky potato chips peppered in sesame seeds.

Their freshly made smoothies are equally a delight. One customer tried the honey, ginger and lime juice on ice and described it as an "incredibly refreshing and thirst quenching" drink on a hot day. The flavours merged as she stirred, giving the beverage a velvety texture and a taste of perfectly blended gingery tang and honey mellow.  Having lived on mainly traditional Vietnamese cooking for most of my time here, the first things that struck me, as the smiling staff brought me my food, was the size of the helpings at Kangaroo Cafe. To say the plates are big would be an understatement. The burgers are as big as Tasmania and the chips are simply the size of small Pacific islands. I once went with a Vietnamese friend who ordered a triple BLT and try as he could, he just couldn’t manage to eat it all, and wasn’t hungry again until the next day.

Hoai, one of the lovely and very friendly waitresses, told me that the most popular meals served at the cafe are Vegemite on toast and of course the Aussi burger. But my personal favourites are the cottage pie, or Shepherd’s pie as we call it in Canada; a layer of smooth mashed potato filled with minced meat, carrots and other vegetables and spices covered with a top layer of mashed potato and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and garlic, baked to perfection in a personal clay pot. Unfortunately my second favourite meal at the cafe, the chicken schnitzel, has been off the menu because of the recent bird flu epidemic. But basically everything is delicious at any time of the day.

Located just a short stroll from Hoan Kiem Lake, the cafe is in the heart of the tourist district, making it a convenient and reasonably priced place to stop in after a morning of sight seeing. Besides offering delicious Vietnamese and Western food, Kangaroo Cafe is also a tour operator. Partnered with Griswald’s Vietnamese Vacations since opening in 1994, the cafe organises short tours to, among others, Ha Long Bay, Sa Pa, Ba Be, the Huong (Perfume) Pagoda as well as Ha Noi City tours, craft village excursions and home stays in Mai Chau.  Tours are realistically priced and tailored to travellers tastes. One of the great things about their tours is that they only accept small groups of 12 for two-day trips and 14 for three-day trips.

Kangaroo Cafe’s "aim is to provide good fresh food and drinks at reasonable prices" and that they do. At any given time of the day the place is packed with travellers writing in their travel journals, happy couples planning their next excursion, day trippers sipping a cool beer and others reading the paper enjoying a mug of Kangaroo Cafe’s delectable coffee. Just writing this makes me want to hop over for a cup right now. — VNS