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tengu's Posts
43 reviews or comments posted; 5 questions asked; 8 answers given.
Reviews / Comments (43) see all
The general ambiance here is very enjoyable, and much (but not all) of the huge amount of art adorning the walls is excellent. Perhaps sensitive souls might find a couple of anguished expressionist portraits to be slightly unsettling to look on while eating. I like them, though, and even tried (unsuccessfully) buying one of them once.
The antiques (?) and traditional furniture are also nice to rest your eyes on. I prefer not to rest my bum on the furniture however, since the dining area upstairs, where you sit on the floor, is more intimate and enjoyable than the downstairs table seating.
This is not a very touristy place, and a great part of the typical crowd you will encounter here are Vietnamese families. That means it can get quite noisy on a Saturday evening, and you should be prepared to have kids playing and running around your table. For me, that just makes the restaurant feel more alive and relaxed. But this is not the place to go for a romantic candle-lit dinner.
The food can be a bit uneven. The Bo Luc Lac is really great, so is the tofu in tomato sauce. The Nem are not that amazing, and some of the meat dishes are bloody horrible: stay away from the "fighting cock" and the buffalo meat. Both are almost impossible to eat, even if you wash them down with copious amounts of beer, since the texture is like a mix between rubber and wet wood. Given that the prices are so low, I usually try to order something new every time - along with a tried and trusted option as backup. And the menu has plenty of interesting options to explore, which you will not see in that many other establishments around town.
The staff are indeed, as has been pointed out, not very attentive. Neither is their English very good. But they are friendly and pretty cheerful.
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I had the pleasure of trying a six course tasting menu here, as a user contribution prize courtesy of the New Hanoian website, and every single one of the dishes tasted very good and was a minor feast for the eyes as well. Maybe, just maybe, I'd have liked my duck a little bit more on the well done side, but that's probably just a Swedish thing. In many other countries duck is supposed to be served semi-rare. The highlights of the dishes I tasted would be the juicy grilled tiger prawn and the impressive Baklava with Rose Water Jelly and Cardamom Cream.
I've also eaten pasta here earlier, and it has been really skilfully prepared – possibly the best pasta I've had in Vietnam, including some that I've eaten in much more expensive restaurants.
Matchbox is fairly inexpensive (for a restaurant obviously catering mostly to the expat community), the food is consistently good, and the charming staff speak excellent English.
Why not five stars then? Well, I'm not a big fan of what they have hanging on their walls: reproductions of pop art (Warhol, etc) and b/w photocopies (yes, really) of movie posters. If you're not a hypersensitive aesthete like me, I'm sure you won't let that bother you, though. And in a way I suppose some ugly looking details like these actually add to the relaxed and casual atmosphere here, which I do enjoy.
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A fairly disappointing experience, since it looks so nice from the street. The waiting staff is somewhat surly, the food is slightly (but not outrageously) overpriced Vietnamese dishes of highly average quality (served with overcooked rice). The interior decoration is a second rate attempt at "traditional" Vietnamese elegance in (yet another) restored colonial era villa.
As a previous reviewer mentioned, the food is often served in spectacular looking ways, like the beef in coconut milk arriving in a coconut bathing in burning vodka (not very practical however, since the fire at first refused to be put out despite brave attempts from both us and the waiters). The beef didn't taste much, and it would have been better if they'd put more effort into seasoning instead of going all out for a flashy presentation.
To sum it all up, this place doesn't really have much going for it - except perhaps the big selection of crayfish, crabs etc. I suppose this portion of the menu is what makes the restaurant popular with Japanese tourists, who seem to take great delight in the more spectacular varieties of crustaceans on offer. And it is rather amusing to see the ritual draining, performed at the table by a grave looking gentleman dressed in what looks like an aoi dai for men, of the vital juices from one meter (counting the antennae) lobsters into small shot glasses which the aforementioned tourists then proceed to enthusiastically gulp down. But not amusing enough to make me want to make a return visit.
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The selection here is simply fantastic, if you like art house and world cinema. This is the place to go if you are on a quest for Fassbinder, Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Fellini, Buñuel, and so on. The shop is very small, hardly bigger than your average bathroom, but they have the dvd:s neatly sorted by genre which makes it easy to browse.
Of course, all the dvd:s are bootlegs, which means picture quality often leaves something to be desired. However, it is impossible to get hold of legitimate dvd releases in Vietnam, and many of these movies are not available as rentals in most other countries. And that's how I look upon buying these films for 15K each, as a rental. If I like the film, I'll buy it in a legal and better quality version when I get back home. Many of them I would hardly have bought without seeing first – and some of them I had never heard of – and this way the rightful copyright owner often actually benefits from this bootleg operation: potential customers are being introduced to their products.
The reason I'm not giving five stars is that out of every ten dvd:s bought here, one of them will typically have some compression or pressing issues that makes it impossible to view. You have to bear that in mind, and look on it as a lottery of sorts (with very cheap lottery tickets)...
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The food here is decent, but hardly so great as to motivate the price tag. We had dinner on the top floor, and it is apparent a lot of work has gone into the visual side of things. Even so, it all comes across as a less than spectacular mix of Bobby Chinn (the drapes) and Wild Lotus. It's time to come up with something new, fellas. An obvious problem is the lighting, two of us were pretty much blinded by spotlights throughout the meal.
Even more irritating were the staff. They were incredibly pushy in trying to convince us to order the set menus, even though we clearly explained we were not interested in the fairly boring dishes they included. The menu system itself was a complete mess, with five or maybe six entirely different menu booklets in total, and each person getting two or three of these. Confusing, to say the least. The waiters kept hassling us as we ate, and the lot of them should be sent back to restaurant school to learn the difference between attentive service and intrusiveness. At least ten times the waiters interrupted our conversation mid-sentence to ask if we wanted more San Pellegrino, or if we would like some coffee now (even though we hadn't finished the main course yet!), etc.
Being the "new version" of the renowned Emperor restaurant, I should have expected a higher level of professionalism from the staff, better use of lighting, more spectacular decoration and better food. Not a terrible place to eat, but in this price class: not worth it.
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Questions (5)
I'm looking for a dojo where I can train full contact/bare knuckle karate in Hanoi.
I'm not looking for clubs that practice points fighting (karate styles like goju kai, shotokan, wado ryu, etc), but rather a place that teaches a style like kyokushin, ashihara or daido juku.
I found a really nice dojo when I was in Saigon, but alas: I live in Hanoi.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Since I work from home, and often feel too busy with my work (or just to lazy) to venture out for dinner or lunch, I like having food delivered to my door. So far I have been using Foodshop 45 and Oregano Deli, and I'm planning to give Gelato a go as well. But I need more options.
What are your favorites when it comes to home delivery dinner/lunch? Preferably one dish should not cost more than 70 000 dong, and if it is less, even better of course.
So far I find Foodshop 45 to have the best value dishes. One thing that annoys me about both them and Oregano is that they seem unwilling to keep my name on file, meaning I have to spend ten minutes every time spelling my address out for the well-meaning but English-impaired person taking the orders.
Thankful for any tips on good places to order from.
Does anyone know if it's possible to buy Moleskine notebooks in Hanoi? Or perhaps some other notebooks of similar design and quality (sturdy oilcloth covers, sewn spine, etc)?
Does anyone know where I can buy fine art sculpture in Hanoi? I'm looking for metal or wooden sculptures (not ceramic or other fragile materials), of a size that would be possible to bring back home (i.e. weighing no more than a couple of kilos). Is there perhaps somewhere I can buy student works from a local art school?
I would like to visit the Thay and Tay Phuoung pagodas in Ha Tay province. However, I don't feel keen to fork out another 100 USD or so to go on a tour organized by a travel company organized.
Most tours I have taken in Hanoi are ridiculously overpriced (a similar tour in Hue, Hoi An, Sapa, and many other places, usually costs a fifth of the price typically asked in Hanoi), and having a guide along seems to be compulsory. But the guides seldom have anything to tell me I don't already know, at least when the tour is to a temple or pagoda (I'm a Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative religion), and mostly just seem interested in stressing you so they can go back to the office sooner to have their nap.
Therefore, I wonder if it is possible to go to the Thay and Tay Phuoung pagodas by local bus, perhaps using taxi as a complement? If so, what is the bus number, where is the most stop for that bus if you live on Ngoc Ha (Ba Dinh), how often does the bus make the run, and how long would it take to get there by bus?
If bus would not be a feasible option, perhaps someone could give me a tip where I can find a good – yet cheap – place to just rent a car with a driver to take me there?
Answers (8)
Posted Tuesday July 1st, 2008.
Yep Steve, will do.
If I don't find the type of Karate I'm looking for, I might actually also (just like you) be interested in Jujitsu – at least if it is possible to find the no-nonsense Brazilian variety here.
In response to the question: I'm looking for a dojo where I can train full contact/bare knuckle karate in Hanoi. I'm not looking for clubs that practice points fighting (karat...
Posted Tuesday July 1st, 2008.
I am also interested in buying old (19th ct, or early 20th ct) books, in English, French or German – or perhaps Vietnamese if the book is really pretty to look at with decorated leather binding and a few pictures in it etc. However, I have not seen any shops that sell antique used books anywhere in Vietnam. I wonder why? Aren't the Vietnamese in to that sort of thing, or what's the deal?
In response to the question: Does anyone know where I could find ancient books for sale in Hanoi ? If yes, please contact me....
Posted Monday July 7th, 2008.
That website was a really, really good tip. Thanks!
In response to the question: Since I work from home, and often feel too busy with my work (or just to lazy) to venture out for dinner or lunch, I like having food delivered to my ...
Posted Thursday August 14th, 2008.
I'm still waiting for two packages with books sent to me more than three months ago, but a package containing cd:s and cookies arrived in under two weeks. Maybe they have a special and really time-consuming procedure for books at the Vietnamese customs office...
In response to the question: Hello there, I had some family members send me a box of books over 3 weeks ago using US priority mail. Still no word of the package... Anybody...
Posted Sunday August 17th, 2008.
I've been looking for more or less the same thing for more than four months, and so far without any luck. Let me know if you find it...
In response to the question: Hi I have been looking for a martial arts club with contact. Preferably muay thai/ thai boxing, mixed martial arts, brazilian jiu jitsu, submission...
Posted Sunday August 17th, 2008.
That is some very upsetting information, Phuc. I really need some of those books I'm waiting for to be able to do my work here. I suppose I'll have to pay for new copies and have them sent by UPS or DHL. Sometimes I really lose my patience with this country...
In response to the question: Hello there, I had some family members send me a box of books over 3 weeks ago using US priority mail. Still no word of the package... Anybody...
Posted Saturday August 30th, 2008.
Sadly, I won't be here in April. Otherwise that sounded like a good tip.
And too bad the exhibition at Bookworm has ended already.
But thank you for the information all the same.
In response to the question: Does anyone know where I can buy fine art sculpture in Hanoi? I'm looking for metal or wooden sculptures (not ceramic or other fragile materials), of ...
Posted Tuesday November 4th, 2008.
I'm Swedish, and during my seven months in Hanoi I am so far yet to come across anywhere to buy roe ("Scandinavian sandwich caviar").
Let me know if you find it, I sure do miss it here...
In response to the question: I am searching for some scandinavian food like roe... if someone knows...Tak tak ...
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In Hanoi SinceSunday March 30th, 2008
Here UntilSaturday February 14th, 2009
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