Viet:Nom is typical of the place it inhabits — Cyber Hub — where the food is good, the drinks better, and you go to while away a Sunday afternoon.

The vibe: Comfortable, so you’ll end up helping yourself out of the serving bowl. Polite and interested staff, green-cane interiors that don’t get in your way, great cocktails and sweet-spicy-tangy food that Indians love. The restaurant realised quickly that a menu straight from the streets of Vietnam may not work in Gurugram. They punched up the condiments and the spices, to give us hard-hitting flavour. The music plays in the background, and you’ll hear strains of Elvis and The Beatles.

Do try: The Summer Rolls, salads (especially the Seafood Salad — prawn, squid, fish with veggies, herbs, and a lemon-chilli dressing); White Rose Dimsums (the tapioca flour gives it a squishy consistency); Prawn and Shishi Dimsums (slightly suspicious with their purple hue — the suspicion disappears when they melt in your mouth, and you learn that the colour is from purple cabbage and beetroot). La Lot, which the son called ‘beef pan’ literally is beef mince rolled in la lot leaf (similar to betel leaves) and steamed. It’s a hit of spice and red meat, and sure to go well with beer. Proceed through the menu from light to the more hard-hitting, also going from fruity cocktails to beer. For mains, we only did the chicken mango curry with jasmine rice: familiar and just right to end.

Skip: The dessert. There’s nothing Vietnamese here, except the Pearl Jewels with Mango (sago pearls soaked in coconut water, basil seeds, coconut cream and condensed milk), but we didn’t get to try this (reviews on Zomato are promising though). The panna cotta did not jiggle and is avoidable. Other than that, I cannot imagine a time or day you shouldn’t go, or a particular dish you mustn’t try. Viet:Nom aims to please, so it’s unlikely you’ll find anything unpalatable here. They’re not stuck up with ‘authentic’ and like most Asian home and street food, whether you add a little bit of this and minus a little bit of that, no one’s going to look down their nose at you.

Go with: A bunch of friends — the more the merrier (we saw of a table of about 15 people), though because it is Gurugram you will not get stared at if you go alone. A glass of wine and a fresh julienned salad is great for an early dinner as well.

Space bar: 80 covers indoors (across 2,800 sq ft), 30 covers outdoors (1,200 sq ft)

Reach: 17-18 DLF Cyber Hub, Gurugram; 12 noon to 12 midnight; if you’re unfamiliar with Gurugram and its road ways, take the Metro (yellow line to Sikandarpur, Rapid Metro to Cyber Hub). If you’re parking outdoors, note the tree number, so you know exactly where you’re parked.

How much? ₹2,000 for two (sans alcohol)