Madame Ngo Une Brasserie Hanoi — Restaurant in Berlin

We got to the restaurant just before rush hour, without having made a reservation. We sat at the bar and had a sneak peak into how our meals were prepared. It got a bit too cozy when we got to our main dish, as more and more eager customers were arriving. My dinner partner and I felt a bit rushed out of the door, as the waiter kept giving time estimations of when a table was free to the walk-ins. We ordered the Bánh mì chay (baguette with tofu) for 8€ and Du'a chua (pickled vegetables) for 4€ as a starter. The tofu featured in the sandwich was soft and resembled scrambled eggs. If you're not into that texture then don't order any of the tofu dishes. I, on the other hand, very much enjoyed the texture and taste of the tofu in my meals -- usually the German palate seeks for a more firm tofu, which makes the meals themselves very dry (and often overly salty.) Off to a good start here! The pickled vegetables were a great treat with the sandwich, and I would order them again as a side for any meal. Now to my main meal: I had a Phở chay (vegan soup) [yes, I enabled a Vietnamese keyboard on my phone to do this remarkable ở] for 12€. This is the part where I feel they need to refine how they're putting the soup together. The flavours were wonderful, and there were a lot of vegetables, and different types of vegetables in the soup. However, there were too many noodles, which threw off the ratio. By having a look into the kitchen, you could see that it was mostly portioned by eye. Which I don't mind from an experienced chef, but it's not so good if every soup ends up with different metrics. My partner's soup ended up having too few noodles in it, while mine had too many. A bit about the vegetables in the soup. Most of the vegetables were too big to fit into my mouth in one go. I would like to not wrestle with the veg I'm trying to eat. If the meal doesn't have a knife included (or you're able to set the piece down without causing a wave of soup to splash) I want every piece to fit into my mouth in one go. Another thing that threw me off were the carrots cut into slender obliques. While it is a nice cut, it is difficult to pick them up with chopsticks (because one edge is always round, the other straight) and even more awkward to drive a spoon with a vegetable in such a shape into your mouth. By the way, oblique carrot cuts are great for stews. I think a more basic slice or diagonal cut would fit better into a soup. Don't make it fancy if it doesn't elevate the meal! Last note about the pho. We were served a slice of lemon instead of a lime to squeeze onto it. I'm not sure if lemon is a common replacement, but I definitely prefer it with lime. I think the overall meal was fine, but a bit overpriced for the quality we received. The banh mi chay is a definite recommendation if you want something fast...

The food is yummy, but your manager/ front person is out of control.

I arrived to this place and before being let inside I was asked in a pretty rude manner “you have 20 minutes to eat before I close, are you going to be fast enough?” Almost clicking the fingers to me.

I said sure, I’ll be fast. I was starving.

When I was in I ordered as fast as I could, chose the simplest food I could.

It took 15 min to get my food and whilst I was waiting for it I just kept getting stressed about not having enough time or not being fast enough to eat it.

Since this is not a feeling that a client should generally feel, but I also prefer to tell this personally instead of leaving a bad review, I proceeded to very calmly tell your manager or whoever the person at the entrance was, that he could tell things in a nicer way and friendlier manner. That I felt rushed and under pressure. That it was possible to phrase this situation differently and in a more respectful way, in the end, you don’t want your clients to feel rushed and offended.

He didn’t take this very well and proceeded to act a bit aggressive, never said the words “I’m sorry” or “you are right, I could have phrased it better”.

He got pissed off, left me with no apology and proceeded to speak about me, with his colleagues, assuming I don’t speak German. When I asked him not talk about a client in front of them, that it was rude and impolite, he started to mimic me and make faces. Said he can talk about me whenever he wants to. Very cynically.

I proceeded to record him and he said he would call the police on me… then took his phone out and started taking photos of me. Of course he never called the police.

A simple apology would have been more than enough, really. Now I will obviously not return to this place and really left a bad taste both in my mouth and in my emotional state.

For sure the client is not respected and absolutely not a priority in this establishment, instead, the client gets bullied in front of all...

This review concerns the service only. After living here for almost a decade now, my expectation for Berlin service is generally low, and if the food is good, I'd still go and tip. I've been to this restaurant for three times now. The service was never good, but the experience this time was so bad and uncomfortable that I might never go back again. First when I said I won't order a drink this time, the waiter repeated my sentence to himself with a sarcastic tone; when my guest ordered water, the waiter basically forced drink on me by saying to him "so a big bottle to share?" The bizarre experience came when we paid. The waiter asked "Zusammen oder getrennt?" (together or separate) and already put the card machine in front of my guest, obviously assuming if it's an older man eating with a younger woman, then the man would be paying for everything. (??!) When I explained to him that I'll be paying for my food and the drink, he gave my guest a funny look and winked, as if they had a mutual understanding. My guest was perplexed and didn't quite understand what was happening, except for feeling very uncomfortable and didn't know what the waiter was implying. I tried to communicate with the waiter at this point that his behaviour made us feel very uncomfortable, and asked if anything was wrong, but he gave the answer that it's just a long working day (it was only mid-day). I feel sorry if he's had a bad working day, but I don't think that justifies treating people this way. Frankly, that also just sounds like a badly made up excuse only because I confronted him on the spot. The ease they did it with (it was two different waiters) seems to indicate this was not the first time they behaved this judgingly with disrespect, without...