Madami - Mom's Viet Kitchen — Restaurant in Berlin

Madami is always a good idea

While not particularly original or creative, Madami is a successful Vietnamese restaurant (they have several around the city) that has always delivered along the years consistently tasty and quality food in a laid back and nice atmosphere.

The place: the restaurant we usually go is the one close to Alexanderplatz. The design is nice and rather simple: a sort of revisited modern colonial style interpreted in a smart and functional way. The restaurant also has an outside terrace with large long tables that you may end up sharing with other customers.

The service: service was efficient and rather nice, even if a bit cold. Staff though know their job.

The food: while not particularly creative (but to be fair it is named “mom’s Vietnamese cuisine”, so you know you will not go for crazy creative plates), the food is always consistently good and relatively authentic. Products are fresh and tasty, cooking usually good. Got very nice Nem Ran (fried rolls with vegetables and chicken), and really good salmon with peanut sauce and coconut milk. Salmon was perfectly cooked. Satay chicken skewers were good, but the peanut sauce still needs some improvements.

The price: for the kind of food and the venue, I would set the price on the expensive end of its category, but still acceptable. Spent 55 euro with tip.

Overall the restaurant is a good address in the city, especially in my opinion for a nice but rather quick lunch while visiting the city. Personally I wouldn’t go there for dinner, but it’s just my opinion...

Long story short: hair in the food and shady resolution.

Long story long: Diner night. Friday night. First, I found a hair in the entrance, a big asian rool that is nothing but a fancy salad. The waiter seems resolutive this time, proposing to me to have a new one, but of course, I already had lost my appetite for it. I let go and just wait for the main course. Them another hair in the main course, a rice noodle wirh duck (expensive meat, keep this information). By this point, I was really upset. There is no way for them to say it was a scam from me because I barely touched the plate. There is no advantage at all in finding hair in the food during a date. They offer me another one, but I prefer to order a soup option instead (if it also cames with a hair, at least it would be sterilized by the heat). Waiters again seems to be resolutive. The soup was only chicken option (cheap meat, keep this information) and OK, I took it and found no hair. I was happy about it but it is the minia restaurant could offer, right? When I ordered the bill, the surprise: they charged me for the DUCK (expensive) meat plate, knowing that I ate the CHICKEN one (cheap).

I made them a favor by not making a scandle seeing, not one, but two plates with hair in the food, and they tried to take advantage of me?

This review is to UNDO the favor, and I hope the restaurant closes by...

Tasty but NOT authentic. Most of the reviews here are by Western people who have never tasted real Vietnamese food. I am Vietnamese and grew up eating all kinds of Vietnamese food from different regions of Vietnam. I am also a Berlin local. The food at Madami is tasty, but it is not authentic Vietnamese cuisine as they brand it. Rather it is a fusion of Vietnamese, Thai and Chinese. Getting authentic Vietnamese cuisine as Vietnamese people cook and eat at home is almost impossible in Berlin. This is because preparing authentic Vietnamese food at scale is not profitable for restaurants. To give you and example: for 4 pots of high-quality pho my mum and I usually buy 1.5 Kgs of high-quality meat for a stock that takes 4-6h to prepare. No restaurant will ever buy 30kg of fresh meat everyday to serve 100 customers with authentic pho. That's why in Vietnam street food vendors focus on only one dish that they can serve at scale with good quality. The same is true for most other noodle soups. So, please go here if you want to have tasty fusion Asian cuisine. If you want authentic Vietnamese food I suggest you try out the Dong Xuan Center in Berlin. It's as...