By Carlos Ottery

LAND & SEA: The 'mắm tôm' pork and clam dish blends Vietnamese and Korean influences. — Photos courtesy of Carlos Ottery

Back in the happier times that were the 1990s, a comedy sketch show once had four Bombay lads heading out for an “English” on a Friday night. Once seated at the restaurant, they proceed to drunkenly harass the waiter and try to outdo each other by ordering the blandest thing possible.

That memory came back as we stood outside Soy PePe, billed simply as a soy milk and tofu restaurant. On paper, it felt like a place where the menu might lean heavily towards the pale and the polite. White food, both literally and metaphorically.

As it turns out, our assumptions were completely wrong and a series of intense Asian-flavour bombs were about to be dispatched.

Tucked just off Lạc Long Quân Street, Tây Hồ, Hà Nội, you enter through a narrow bamboo-lined corridor that gently removes you from the street. Inside, things open out into a calm, airy dining space. Light wood tables, soft lighting, clean lines. Not hugely distinctive, but pleasant and quietly put together.

The menu references a mysterious Mr Yajima, and his influence seems to linger. There is a distinctly Japanese sense of commitment here. Everything is in order, everything is clean, and nothing feels left to chance. In Hà Nội terms, where things are usually chaotic and messy, this joint borders on the monastic. One almost images the chef wearing Zen Buddhist robes.

EARLY DOORS: Soy PePe’s understated frontage on Lạc Long Quân Street, with a bamboo-lined entrance.

The menu leans heavily on a hot and cold tofu tapas concept, with around 40 dishes. There is also a slightly curious backstory. The branding suggests a post-pandemic merging of two places, Soy and PePe la Poule, now operating as one. It is not made into a big deal, but it does help explain the menu, which feels happily uncommitted to any single cuisine. You can go large or small, and we sensibly went small, mostly out of greed to try more dishes.

Our spread covered a fair bit of ground. Green bean and pork dumplings, edamame, fat French fries (not described as such, but certainly on the larger side), cold chicken with yuzu onion sauce, a mapo-style spicy minced pork, a stewed tofu and pork meatball, and a more adventurous highlight called mắm tôm pork and clam Korean spicy.

It reads like a bit of a scattergun order, but the madness all made sense on the table and it felt like a bit of whistlestop tour of Asian cuisine.

CHICKEN TONIGHT: Healthy cold chicken with yuzu onion sauce offers a sharp contrast.

The dumplings were solid. Crisp on the underside, soft on top, and gone in an instant. The edamame did what edamame always does, quietly and efficiently, bright clean flavour with a hint of salt. The cold chicken with yuzu onion sauce brought a welcome sharpness and freshness.

The French fries were very good. Thick-cut, bordering on wedges without quite committing, they were crisp on the outside and light within, if not entirely consistent. Perhaps it is a personal chip fetish, but they seemed to linger long in the memory.

The mapo-style dish leaned strongly Chinese in mood, in a good way. Rich, spicy, properly umami, and one of the more assertive plates on the table. It cut through the lighter dishes nicely and gave the meal a bit of backbone.

MEATY: A stewed tofu and pork meatball, one of the restaurant’s standout dishes.

Then there was the mắm tôm pork and clam dish, which, on paper, sounds like it should probably not work. In reality, it was one of the standouts. A little spicy, a little sour, with clams, strips of pork belly and a runny poached egg bringing it all together.

It leans into both Vietnamese and Korean flavours without becoming confused, and somehow manages to feel balanced despite the long list of components. One of those dishes where you keep going back for another bite, partly to work out why it works, and partly because it just does.

The stewed tofu and pork meatball was another highlight. We wondered why there was only a small option and, well, it was massive, coming in not far off the size of a cricket ball. The tofu softens the texture of the meat without making a fuss about it, and the whole thing sits in a sauce that is both comforting and quietly deep. It's not flashy, but it works.

There is, throughout, a sense that the dishes have been thought through. They feel engineered and intentional, but not in an overly fussy way. The pricing suggests casual, family dining, but the menu and overall execution push things a little higher. A daytime stop, certainly. A business lunch, easily. A date option, why the hell not?

LIGHT & AIRY: The dining space at Soy PePe is softly lit, with a quiet minimalist atmosphere.

There are also plenty of vegetarian options, which feels entirely natural given the concept rather than bolted on as an afterthought.

Drinks followed the theme. We tried a mango and pomelo soy milk, along with a red dragon fruit version, both priced at VNĐ65,000. These were bright and fresh, with the soy milk adding a slight nuttiness that gives a little more depth than a standard smoothie. A small touch, but one that fits the place well.

Considering the two drinks, plus one beer, and the many dishes we had, the bill coming in at under VNĐ800,000 for two felt like a bargain.

Behind its minimalist façade, Soy PePe delivers a surprising burst of bold, pan‑Asian flavours that overturn every assumption about what a tofu restaurant can be.

In the end, it offers rich high-taste Asian cuisine, yet always feels light, healthy and clean, which is quite a difficult balance to nail. White on the menu, perhaps, but on the plate, not so much. Delicious and healthy: we can mark this one down as a win. VNS

Soy PePe

Address: 591 Lạc Long Quân Street, Tây Hồ, Hà Nội

Cuisine: Tofu-based Asian fusion, small plates

Price range: Around VNĐ50,000 to VNĐ190,000 per dish

Best for: Sharing plates, light dinners, low-key lunches

Drinks to try: Mango and pomelo soy milk, red dragon fruit soy milk