Gelato Italia — Attraction in Hà Nội

I was there at the weekend and it was not very crowded. The place was located right at the main street and it was super easy to find. The design of the place was cute with the huge ice cream shape on the main door. The inside was cozy. There were 5 ladies at the counter to take the order and most of the time they were busy talking with each other. I ordered 3 scoops with 3 different flavors: strawberry yogurt, lime and passion fruits. One of those ladies at the counter took the order, made it and then....confirmed after finishing making the order which was so weird. They should confirm before making it. I can tell right at the moment I tasted it, it was not the right gelato I expected. It was ice-cream. It contained a lot of ice inside and was not silky smooth. The lime ice-cream was bitter. I had quite bad eyesight so I couldn't see things quite clearly. After tasting some spoons of ice-cream, I realized the color of the wooden spoon was wrong. I thought it was dirty at first, but compared with the spoons in the chocolate ice-cream cup, the color was wrong. I brought it close to my eyes and realized the spoon was grey which was the color of mold. Since I had a pack of those wooden spoons at home, I knew it was mold and if one of them has mold, all of them have mold too. It was so off for me. I tasted ice-cream, I ate using spoons with mold and I was shocked by the fact that no one bothered to check those spoons. I should ask for another spoon but when I looked at the staff, they were still talking to each other and I didn't want to...

Ice-cream (because this is not gelato!) is very sweet, and not creamy at all. If you try and scoop out spoonful's of ice-cream from the cup, you will notice how the ice-cream breaks off in blocks, rather than separate between the amount on the spoon and the content in the cup like a smooth cream. The different flavours are well identifiable, but then everything just tastes overly sweet.

No complimentary drinking water is offered. Gioia gelati, for example, offers free drinking water, without it even been requested.

The design of the ice-cream shop is horrible, and creates a lot of distance between the shop staff and the clients. From the moment that you enter the main door, you need to walk a distance, as a client, before even being noticed by the shop staff. A redesign that I would recommend: place the counter right at the entrance, and place the seating are towards the rear part of the shop, where the...

I think this is the best (if not the only) Gelato place in Hanoi. There is a variety of gelato, I personally like dark Chocolate, Lemon and Mango while my sister usually have Dark Chocolate with something sour like Hibicus. They have like 12 or 14 flavors in total, and just added a few more but the classics are mango, hibiscus, milk and dark chocolates. Recently, they also have some popsicle and cake options. The price is a little high for ice cream in Hanoi: 40,000 vnd/ scoop. Anyway, the place is nice, there is an air-conditioned room and a wide garden outside, so during the cooler days you can enjoy the breeze. The staffs are nice and friendly. There may be a line during hot days and the wait may...