Tien Tien

Introduction: A Vietnamese restauant with two sites. We visited the Barkly St St.Kilda establishment
Ambience: Set in a large, noisy, barely furnished room not really distinguishable from dozens of other restaurants of this type simple but quite pleasant
Service: Unexceptional - not at all bad but not particularly good
Food: Wide range of entrees and mains with chefs' specials on blackboards on the walls. Stuffed eggplant ($6) drenched in a heavy black bean sauce lacked taste however the Lettuce Bun, another name for san chao bao, with plum sauce was very good as were the spring rolls. The garlic prawns were also reasonably tasty.
The deep fried flounder ($19.5) was cooked to a crisp so it was hard to find any fish! They have a "Must Try" (which is always a Mekong River dish) in each section of the menu. Seduced by this I tried their Mekong River Beef which was a slices of beef and pieces of tomato and peppers in a mild chilli sauce - hardly spectacular!!
Wine: They have a reasonable but also unexciting list. BYO corkage $2.5 per bottle.
Price: Entrees about $6 Mains about $18
Comments: A reasonable suburban Vietnamese restaurant Amused to see the Vegetarian section Mekong River -Must Try dish has a footnote Not recommended for vegetarians!!!!
Score: 13/20