Mama's Buoi Chadstone — Restaurant in Melbourne

We were off to the movies and Mama’s Buoi was close by. We were intrigued by the plates of food of diners and the smells coming from here. I appreciate that we were seated and attended to promptly. The staff were very kind and courteous.

The compliments end there. I love Vietnamese food in particular. The staff asked if we wanted the food together, and we said yes. The food arrived separately.

First was the $24 Vermicelli salad with grilled chicken. Typically, when I order at any restaurant, they have the dressing separate but i assumed the fish sauce dressing was in it already so I dug in. I was pretty sure there was no dressing as the vermicelli, lettuce and cucumber have no flavour really. I asked if they had the dressing as it was bland and the staff insisted it was already in there, so okay.

Then the $8 for 4 half-sized spring rolls, with shredded lettuce which isn’t how it normally is served. The prawn spring roll is what it was, a prawn in a wrapper. You are supposed to wrap the spring roll with the lettuce so that was a struggle.

Here comes the $22 “mini” chilli clams, and I mean mini referring to portion size, although the clams were small as well. They could’ve easily charged me $15 for this diminutive dish, but it was at this point I realised they overpriced everything, even my $4 shot of Pepsi, whereas they could’ve given me the whole can or 250 mls of Pepsi.

If you want really delicious Vietnamese food, go to HOA TRAN in Springvale. Half the price and double the serving...

You would certainly hope that your Mama would treat you better than Mama's Buoi Chadstone. I was initially going to give this establishment 2 stars, but as I meditated on my experience today, my disappointment grew and grew. Firstly, it was near impossible to receive any attention from the staff. Unless you explicitly call out to them, they will make minimal effort to attend to you. No amount of intense eye contact is enough to garner their attention. I will note, however, that when you are graced with their attentiveness, they are definitely nice enough. My food took 30 minutes to come out, about 10 minutes longer than the fellow diners at my table. It seems that the extra time was used to overcook the chicken in my pad thai. I also had the delight, or rather, displeasure, of tasting the pho. As a matter of fact, 'tasting' the pho is too generous a phrase. I merely ingested it. The cup of water on the table had more flavour than the pho. My unfortunate friend found a hair in her food (perhaps a misplaced attempt at seasoning?). The staff were happy to remove this from our bill. But alas, they misplaced another friend's order and put it through the system again, leaving us to pay for her order twice. The positives of this restaurant, being the moderately tolerant staff and ideal location, are far outweighed by the numerous negatives. This restaurant provides a service only a...

It takes a lot for me to give just one star. Or should I say, little.

A little bit tasteless on the food side.

Also a little bit of service.

Mainly it was the fact that we ordered bbq chicken rice paper rolls, which came 20 minutes later and at the same time as our Pho.

The only problem was it was Crab rolls - the waiter even presented them saying they were Crab.

I politely explained we had ordered the chicken. It was taken away.

We started to eat the tasteless ‘famous 9 hour Pho’.

More rice paper rolls appear ten minutes later. ‘Here is you BBQ chicken rolls. Sorry about that’.

A closer look reveals they are prawn rice paper rolls.

The waiter already walked away.

No one comes back.

I get up and tell them again - this is still not chicken...

Another 15 minutes pass... we finally get the rolls.

They fall apart when we pick them up.

When we pay the waiter asks how everything was.

I ask if they really want to know.

‘Of course, please’.

So I explain the above.

‘Oh, we were really busy you know’.

That’d be understandable but the restaurant was 3/4 empty.

No discount. Just an excuse that is clearly a lie.

Don’t bother with Mamas Buoi. Plenty of...