Dong Ba — Restaurant in Melbourne

Totally NOT RECOMMENDED 👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎 We went to Dong Ba for lunch and it was totally a disaster. We came in and no one give us the menu. We have to wait for ages then asked for the menu. At that moment, there were only 3 tables in the restaurant. The lady who took order is Unfriendly - I have to say she looked angrily, rude and ruined all the orders. Not only my table order, but also the 2nd table, on the right, from the front door. That table only has 1 customer and the customer order duck noodles but she wrote chicken. How could she did it? They both spoke Vietnamese to each other. Then our table, I ordered beef noodles, others friends ordered spicy beef noodles and dry egg noodles with crispy chicken. What we received is 2 spicy beef noodles, the crispy chicken with egg noodles in the soup. After we told her that she messed up our ordered. She brought all the wrong the dishes back to the kitchen and we can hear people in the kitchen were very upset that she been messed up the ordered many times today. Lastly, when my friend went to the toilet. She rudely asked why he is here? Oh well, what do you think? Going to the toilet to play games???? The worst...

The food was five stars, best bun bo hue I've ever had, no sweat at all. However, place itself gets two stars, for several reasons.

First up, COVID safety. There was only one check in code, none on windows, just on the sign in table on the inside. Hard to find and I had to check in while a whole family hovered, no masks, just behind me. Staff made no menton to the adults about wearing a mask, nor did they ask to see my vaccination certificate. I had to show it to them after I was seated.

The place is tiny and was quite full seemingly disregarding current capacity limits for COVID safety. Staff were almost uniformly wearing their masks wrong. I think I saw one with their mask on covering nose and mouth. Really not good enough.

Second big issue was the bill. I don't carry cash at all unless I have a good reason to. I maybe should have realised this could happen and bought some, but I forgot. They had a sign saying "$1 surcharge for bill under $20 for card". This isn't legal, at all. 1.5 to 2% is the standard cost of transaction. I told the staff member as such and they allowed me to pay 2% instead, which was good. Please...

Bun Bo Hue is the speciality of this place and I thought it was good as they offered several different variations of this dish. I came here with 6 people at 12 noon and we not only wanted to try the speciality but also other dishes. When I asked for Bun Rieu was told that they ran out. What at 12 noon? You must be kidding right! Then when our food came out my medium size noodles was the same size as my sister in law who ordered a large bowl.15 mins into eating we see new people coming in and ordering the dish we were told they had run out of. Very strange! Towards the end when some of us were finished and others were still eating, they asked us to help clear the tables and pass the bowls, cutlery and food scraps up to them so they could prepare the table for the next customers. Don't know about anyone else but when I go into a "sit down place" I don't expect to pay money then get told help the staff clear the tables. With these cheap eateries you expect to see cheap furniture, cutlery and the like but this experience was way too negative for me so I certainly...