At the table: One thrilling step beyond streetfood

Lai Rai — was it born of a Wes Anderson movie or a computer game? From its ordered red and white frontage it wouldn't surprise if either Owen Wilson or one of the GTA crooks emerged.

- DAVID ELLIS RESTAURANT CRITIC

On this part of Peckham’s Rye Lane — a world of street barbecues and money transfer shops, of cash and carrys and mobile repair booths — it is an apparition, as crisp and neat as a striped shirt still in its packet. It draws admiring, inquisitive stares; boys riding on their bikes stop, couples double back. A man with holes in his varsity jumper pulled out a Leica and snapped.

Inside is more of the same. It is mostly butter yellow though the red of 1950s diners and tinned sardines is everywhere: the pin-thin neon strip lights; the metal stools; the chopsticks; even the grout between the tiles. It looks faintly make-believe, but has the feeling of being the place to be. Huddled over the small tables are young dates, cool kids; lots of statement frame glasses and nipple piercings. We sat in the window. Great view if you like graffiti.

Lai Rai comes in two guises: “Ca phe by day, bia ho'i by night” is a motto. Or: coffee when it’s light, beer when it’s dark. A Vietnamese café from 11am-3pm, in the evenings it becomes a satay-scented canteen. Little by little, the name means, but it’s slang, too, for those laughing nights with friends that blear into soft focus over maundering conversations; a little to eat, a bit to drink. Pick at a few bites, staff suggest.