posted about 12 hours ago by tengu
about the venue: Chim Sao

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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.

posted about 2 months ago by tengu
about the venue: Nam Phuong

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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.

posted about 3 months ago by tengu
about the venue: Club de l'Oriental

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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.