Xich Lo in Havering

Amazing food fresh and quick. Dont let the decor put you off, having been coming here for a few years now. My daughter is so in love with the summer rolls, filled with delicious prawns and pork. If you are in doubt ask the staff they are very helpful. They only take cash so draw some money before going in. UPDATE They now take card payments 🎉

The staff were super friendly but the food wasn’t amazing. Vietnamese is usually really vibrant, fresh and flavourful - but the food we had was quite bland and simple. Not as much flavour, veg and herbs as we’d expect. The pho was the best dish but the curry, rice dish and summer rolls were very disappointing - enough to put us off going again. The bubble tea was amazing and we’ll probably stop by again for one of those. The bubble tea and staff are the reason the review is a 3 and not a 2.

Amazing food,really healthy and well priced. Service is always excellent. A must try

Great vibe (seems family run but not sure), and food was fantastic + affordable. Portions were plenty too.Would definitely recommend the bao buns, skewers, or fresh summer rolls for starters. I had prawn bao bun, chicken skewers (it's served with a delicious peanut sauce), and prawn summer rolls.For a main I had the Com Thịt Nướng Xich Lo (basically rice + all the meats), it was pretty good. Not as great as the starters but was happy nonetheless.We also ordered bubble tea and green tea (which was plenty!)

Fantastic food. Friendly staff. Good value for money. Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk, lotus tea, and green papaya salad with prawns

We stopped for a delicious coffee, the restaurant was a bit quiet at the time but service was excellent as was the coffee.

It was good to support another local restaurant today with a long overdue return to Xichlo for some fabulous Vietnamese food. Xichlo is a lovely friendly little cafe in the heart of Hornchurch town centre. We decided to visit on sunday and received a nice friendly welcome on arrival before being seated. We then looked at the menu to see they serve a nice variety of Vietnamese cuisine from starters , salads , baguettes , noodles , rice , curry & soups. We decided to order as we went along and started with the Taster Starter Meat Platter of grilled pork summer rolls , pork & prawn spring roll & chicken skewers accompanied by three dipping sauces. Each item was delicious and a great way to start. At this time we also ordered a Jasmine Tea and an Apple Bubble Tea which I absolutely loved. We then looked at the menu again and ordered a Crispy Pork Vietnamese Baguette along with a Chicken Green Papaya Salad and some spicy prawn crackers. We were then nicely offered a complimentary coffee so I had an Iced Coffee which was an absolute delight and a Vietnamese Filter Coffee. We next moved on to our main course where we chose a Chicken & Prawn Vietnamese Curry with sweet potatoes , lemongrass & coconut milk. Our other choice was the Pho Tai a Vietnamese Noodle Soup with thinly sliced rare beef steaks , clear rice noodles , fresh herbs and flavoured with a beef broth. Both dishes were absolutely delicious. As they don't serve desserts this rounded off a fabulous lunch. Next time your in town I would highly recommend a visit for either a quick snack or a nice lunch. The food here is amazing with every dish bursting with fantastic Vietnamese flavours and spices. I for one won't be leaving it to long before I return.

I came here first time with my wife and brought a friend along to try it out which was recommended by words of mouth. The place is nicely done got a bit of oriental style and had some old furniture looking. The food taste very nice and not too pricey at all. My wife like it very much and surprisingly my friend like it very much because she is a fussy eater.

The worst place we have eaten at in a long time.We were looking forward to trying out first Vietnamese meal. Ultimately, came out feeling like we were served something a POW from the war would have claimed went against the Geneva Convention.The excellent Sukothai across the road was not open so we thought to get a fix from a Vietnamese meal. Afterall, how truly different can they be?Well, the answer is light years apart. We went to order and had a vegetable curry and a vegetable noodles and vegetable spring rolls.The spring roll was hot and really stood out as being the only dish that was. Other than that, barely any filling and served with a rice vinegar as a dipping sauce (which I will overlook as may be the tradition).The noodles in the curry were luke warm (perhaps they weren't microwaved for long enough!) as was the actual vegetable curry. This was an abomination of a thing, something like a love child between a value brand curry sauce and some sweet potatoes, very dry tofu (possibly deep fried and like 5 day old bread chunks) with two (yes 2) button mushrooms and two little chunks of onion making up the vegetable part. Additionally there was not enough curry for the noodles which on hindsight was no bad thing as it was barely warm, completely tasteless (unless the colour yellow has a taste) and probably abused my human rights.The vegetable noodles were again under microwaved, came with the same 5 day old bread pieces passed off as Tofu and a salad on the side which to it's credit was fresh.The waitress was apologetic and offered to give me more curry sauce which I foolishly accepted as ultimately I didn't bother eating it as it didn't really address the actual issue of being barely warm, tasteless and almost devoid of actual vegetables.We were sorely disappointed and would never return and highly recommend that no one else throws good money away which is what you will do if you order there. On the subject of money, value was very poor as the portions were not generous at all. Even if we had eaten everything, we would have come out hungry and the prices of almost £8 for the curry was double what it should have been bearing in mind the portion size, even if it had been edible.If you feel I have been unduly harsh, feel free to check out my other reviews for balance.

Breakfast meal deal - so good I ate it all before I could take a photo! Not bad for a fiver. Traditional drip coffee (tastes similar but better than filter coffee) then mixed with condensed milk (no sugar required!). But what surprised me the most was the humble omelette baguette. How you can get that much flavour in a simple plain omelette and baguette is beyond me. The baguette was hot and crisp on the outside but deliciously soft and surprisingly light on the inside. The omelette was a perfect consistency with few spring onions inside and coriander to garnish. But the flavour, definitely oriental, I assume it's the oil. Will come again next time I'm in town.