I had dinner with three friends on a Saturday night at Viet Star, a popular little Vietnamese restaurant on Glenferrie Rd. We'd made a booking for 7pm, which was a good move, because by about 7.30pm, the place was pretty full.

We opted for the $23 per person "Banquet 4", which consisted of a selection of entrees and mains. We started with excellent spring rolls, Vietnamese chicken coleslaw (one of my favourite dishes) and some nice crispy fried quail to round out the entrees. All staples of the Vietnamese cuisine we see here in Melbourne and all very well done.

For mains, we had fried rice (unremarkable, but good), chicken with chilli and lemongrass, which had a good amount of heat and tasted great, garlic prawns (very good) and finally salt and pepper squid, which had been deep-fried in batter - this was also very good, but by this stage we were all very full!

The restaurant is fully licensed, but also allows BYO. We brought a bottle of white (and paid a meagre $4 corkage) and had some Vietnamese beer, which cost $5 a bottle. The drinks here are very well-priced!

The only disappointing aspect of the meal was the service. Oddly, our table for four was only set for three, and I had to ask four or five times for a bowl and some cutlery, which took until half-way through the entrees to arrive. The same story when we asked for a jug of water later in the meal (after the chilli chicken!).

All in all, very tasty food for a modest fee and we had a very enjoyable dinner!

Approximate cost: $10-14