Hanoi — Restaurant in Paris

My husband (American) and I (Vietnamese-American) had a pretty heavy French lunch in Éparney during our Champagne wine tour, so we decided to cancel our dinner reservation at a French restaurant and go for Vietnamese. We looked up Hanoi (Hà Nội in Vietnamese, as our language is monosyllabic), and were glad we chose it. It's small, well-run by Vietnamese people (with whom it was a pleasure to practice my Vietnamese!), and lived up to its name—offering delightful northern Vietnamese dishes. My husband had the phở (distinctively northern with its wider noodles and lighter broth), and I had the bò lá lốt (spiced beef rolled in betel leaves). They were both lovely and offered an almost full-circle experience eating Vietnamese food in France, as Vietnam (Việt Nam) was heavily influenced by France during its colonization in the late 19th century... including the word "phở," which supposedly is a derivation of "pot-au-feu" and the use of the leftover...

A little pricey, but then again, Europe is always pricey....the food was pretty good...was put together nicely. The restaurant was very nice, we arrived late, but they saved the table we reserved and were very hospitable, even though we stayed a little over time into their "rest period" (when their restaurant closes so the workers get a break and they prepare for dinner...). They have one of those fancy toilets from Japan that sprays water to clean you up...I was tempted to try but not gutsy enough to do it...just a little fun fact. Haha.

But please don't be a rude American like I was and show up late and stay late, when the worker are supposed to be on break...I guess I had a get out of jail card for that one since my cousin is French and the worker was nice and had a sense of humor when we fought for the check like two crazy...

It pains me to give this only 3 stars because the food was actually pretty good. Pho soup had a good flavor and a reasonable amount of meat. Nothing wrong with the bowl of pho I ate.

I'm only giving it 3 stars because of the tipping option when paying by card. They hand the credit card machine to you with the tip option of 10, 15, or 20% tip with 15 being recommended. I have a feeling they only gave that option to me since I'm obviously an American tourist. I'm very against bringing the American tipping culture to Europe. So for that reason, this place left a bad impression on...