Hanoi Station (Merode) — Restaurant in Etterbeek

The young lady with glasses that attended us was quite rude and made us feel uneasy. I saw some old comments mentioning the same thing, too bad I didn’t see them sooner.

This is what happened. When I went to the counter to order I was informed they only accept cash or belgium-issued cards, no visa or master cards. My boyfriend and I run into the same issue several times during our time in Netherlands and Belgium, so I asked if she could let us try one time because eventually they always got passed by somehow, my boyfriend who was waiting at the table also came to explain the situation. The lady then asked us what cards we had in an unpleasant tone, my boyfriend answered we had both visa and master, but we’d like to try blah blah, then she just put her hand on the card machine and said, “this machine, doesn’t accept visa nor master.”

We said alright, then found an atm in the nearby metro station to withdraw some cash and went back. This time I asked my boyfriend to order it cuz I didn’t want to deal with her, and my boyfriend came back telling me she really had a bad attitude and little patience. When he approached, she only asked if it was the same order as before, my boyfriend confirmed but wanted to double check the food we ordered. Instead of replying it clearly, she just brushed it off and only wanted to take the money and finished the payment process. (My boyfriend had to ask like three times)

The food came correctly but to be honest it wasn’t that good either, I’ve had better red curry and beef pho elsewhere. The unpleasant service experience also left a bad taste in our mouth and affected our mood a lot. We visited during lunchtime on a weekday and the place was half packed, I guess it’s popular among locals who work nearby and do not have a payment issue.

We can understand they only allow the payment methods they accept and we can also sympathize with her or other staff having to always repeat the same rule, but among all the other experiences we’ve had, shops always seemed sorry when they couldn’t take our cards and were happy to let us try despite the situation.

I usually don’t leave reviews for restaurants, but I decided to leave a reminder for anyone who’s interested in going and share what we’ve...

The restaurant is close to a famous and beautiful place The Parc Cinquantenaire. So... parking is a challenge. We arrived in this place at 9pm and parking is a bit easier, otherwise we would take a metro. At 9pm on Tuesday, in the restaurant there's still many people and we immediately had feeling very warm, friendly, just like we arrived in a classy restaurant in Hanoi. The menu is nice, simple and we found immediately what we wanted: phớ bò Hà Nội and bánh cuốn. We ordered downstairs and chose a table upstairs, we were lucky to find a table. The place is with many nice and special decorations, pictures from Vietnam. We got our food 5 minutes later. Phở Bò smelled so good, with Hanoi authentic rice pasta, meats, onions and chili sauce. Yeah... you cannot talk about Phở without this special chili sauce. I finished my big bowl in 5 minutes while my wife took time to enjoy Phở. Then, they brought Bánh Cuốn to our table. It was less smelly than Phở, obviously. It was served inside a bamboo box, like in Vietnam, with porc meat and onions which were wrapped inside a thin special rice paper. We also received a bowl of special sauce, a kind of Nước Mắm for the food. The sauce is mixed of Nước Mắm, vinaigre, onions... and obviously it cannot come directly from a supermarket. The food is really Hanoi authentic. Toilet was really clean. We finished eating, heavily went out to our car. We would spend around 35 euro for our food. We got very good evening in...

In a nutshell, their food is great, affordable, but if you come from a culture where service is as important as food in a restaurant, you will be a bit upset. The rules are: we need to order and pay first before go upstairs and sit on a table, bizarre. And then after the food was brought to us, I didn't get the drink I ordered because apparently the drink is on me to take. And so I went back downstairs to get my drink, the girl at the counter asked me if I paid for that (awkward situation). I would prefer if she remembered that I did pay for that just 2 minutes ago and that not everyone should naturally understand their weird system of operation. (Bring your drink, we bring your food). The girl at the counter was respectful but as raw as a robot can get. I orderered the Poulet au lait du coco, highly recommended soup.

Go there for the good vietnamese food but expect a raw service that puts...