Trang Restaurant, West End

At 59 Hardgrave Rd, just down from Tongue and Groove.
Went there last night on recommendation from a friend. It was packed. We had to wait outside in the humid ready-to-storm night for about fifteen minutes, watching fragrantly pungent Viet dishes sail past on their way to some other lucky person. Tantalising. Meanwhile though, we could peruse the half-Viet, half-Chinese menu laminated onto a table near the door. We decided that we would choose three items to share: the sugarcane prawn rice paper rolls, the pork chop with shredded pork on rice and the salt and pepper fried tofu.
Eventually we were given a table in the noisy interior and eventually after that someone took our order. (Staff very friendly and polite, despite being busy). Ordered said items. Rolls were pretty great, lots of mint and lettuce. Could have used some extra dipping sauce (which was maybe a little mild for my liking) and some extra cucumber, but they were good, overall.
Pork chop with shredded pork on rice: yes, it was as weird as it sounds. A lean fried chop sitting on a pile of rice, next to a lettuce cup full of...shredded pork. Looked like cold noodles made of ham. Or maybe ham that had been through a paper shredder. Weird. Mm. But good. But weird. Salt and pepper tofu: access denied, sorry, Trang. Nicely fried, I guess, nicely crisp and golden, but tofu was super-firm and even a little dry inside. Salt and pepper seasoning seemed to be missing. The tofu came with some fried onion and chili sprinkled on top, but was really very flavourless and bland. We mixed some soy and chili sauce to dip the pieces in, which redeemed it somewhat, but I was disappointed that Trang had forgotten to finish off their dish properly.
We were eventually the last to leave, after gossiping and picking over the scraps for three hours. The owner was sitting at a spare table, going over his takings for the evening. For a Wednesday night, they would have made a very healthy taking indeed (even though it cost us $25 for two of us and we stuffed ourselves stupid).
Overall rating: 6.5. Great service, Trang, great food, but work on the tofu, please.