Nǎm Sông: Vietnamese in Sheffield
Nestled up in Broomhill, Sheffield is Nǎm Sông. Sheffield’s answer to Vietnamese atmosphere, food and coffee. Complete with breakfast, lunch, evening and cocktail menus, Nǎm Sông offers everything you would want from a Vietnamese coffee house and restaurant. The lunchtime menu offers everything from crisp French baguette bánh mìs to rice noodle phởs, to rice bowls with fresh herbs, salads and pickles served with nước chấm seasoning sauce. With all of these dishes, you get the choice of seasoned tofu or mushrooms to make it vegan as well as meat options for any meat eaters coming along too. For the evening menu, you can pick from kaffir lime leaf and coconut curry with tofu, vegan broth phởs, fresh vermicelli noodle salad with ginger or sriracha tofu as well as any of the starter and small bites. Nǎm Sông offers so many great vegan options and so much of their menu is meat-free so you can always get something different every time you go back.
On this occasion, we came for the breakfast menu as well as one of the reasons so many people flock to Nǎm Sông, the Vietnamese phin filter coffee. Strong, bold black coffee mixed with dreamy sweetened coconut condensed milk. Nǎm Sông’s own filter coffee slowly dripped into coconut condensed milk creates the sweetest and most dynamic flavoured coffee I have ever tasted. We tried the phin filter coffee both black and with coconut condensed milk and it is an absolute game changer. Some of the nicest coffee I have had the pleasure of trying and even if the place is full, I am going back even if it’s to just get a phin filter coffee to go.
With our coffees, we opted for the breakfast bánh mì baguettes. One vegan sausage and one portobello mushroom bánh mì served on a crisp French baguette filled with tomato chutney, cucumber, pickled red cabbage, spring onions & coriander and fresh chillis. We also got the option of hoi sin or Sriracha sauce alongside it, and I cannot forget the bánh mìs were served with a side of seasoned sriracha mayonnaise hash browns. This was the perfect way to start a day. The bánh mìs just tasted so fresh and it was an absolute treat to have something like this for breakfast. Both just worked with the sausage and mushroom, even when you started to put a little bit of the hashbrowns in there, absolute *chefs kiss*. If you’re looking for something different for breakfast in Sheffield come to Nǎm Sông, for the breakfast bánh mì and for the phin coffee. It’s something different to the norm but it works brilliantly and I know I will be back for this again.
Nǎm Sông was a treat and somewhere I think everyone should try. Whether you come for breakfast, coffee, lunch or cocktails and a meal in the evening, you’re going to enjoy yourself. The place is brimming with character and the food matches that too. I can’t wait to come back and try something different, I can’t lie, if it’s early enough I’ll get the breakfast again too. One thing I would also recommend, if you get the chance to sit at one of the floor tables instead of a chair, do that. It adds a bit more authenticity to an already atmospheric place.
