Hansan Vietnamese Restaurant Panmure — Restaurant in Maungakiekie-Tāmaki

We're on the hunt for Auckland's most authentic Vietnamese. We didn't find it here. The short story? It's well worth visiting but we won't be coming back, well not for classic Vietnamese soups at least.

Now, the long story...............

The food is good but lacks flavour. The service was Chinese not Vietnamese which was a good hint for the way the meal was gonna go. They didn't even know what Vietnamese basil is let alone that it should accompany an order of Pho.

The Pho Tai and Mi Bo Koh are what we came for; get that right and you're well on the way to the top of our list of Auckland's authentic Vietnamese restaurants....

Sadly the Pho was made with chicken stock (what the?) and roasted garlic. It tasted good but they shouldn't be able to call Pho. Plus, AND THIS IS A MAJOR ISSUE, they use the cheap rice noodles that taste like the love child of a smelly plastic lunchbox that woke up one morning next to a tired, old, damp, smelly sponge. That love child seeped its unpalatable flavour through the soup turning it into a foul smelling, rancid tea. Sorry guys. Huge fail.

The Mi Bo Koh was nice but fresh flavours and ingredients in the stock were noticeably absent. I get the same flavour out of the packet version in the Asian mini-mart, which begs an obvious question.

The shredded pork rolls were tasty but they stuff them with cheap lettuce instead of mint, coriander or spring onion. Authentic? Nope. Good for what they are? Sure. Why not?

If you're after nice, cheap, generic Asian flavoured food that doesn't have to be packed with fresh flavour then you'll be happy to meet your mates here for a meal. The menu is OK. Just don't...

Hansan is Vietnamese restaurant. Vlaue for food Ample of parking Disablity parking available. Beautiful enterance. Planty of staff Helpful and professional staff Great service. Variety of meals and family meal options. Hige space Big seating capacity. Fifty five dollars for one on tray 2 meal mains and one beer. In beer range two range of beer available Tsingtao and sanga Vietnamese beer. Beer served chilled with nice beer mug. Not tap beer available. High seat for kids available. Average standard toilets. Great location for family dinner Self serve for drinking water. Non smoking area. Green enterance with water drop and nice asian look Average size table tidy floors. Open wide access of enterance for wheel chair. Light asian music nice ambiance lighting. Great sinage on entrrance. Midern style order taking on PDA. Good value of money. Best soups avail in chiken pork and beef. Nice stir fry available on menu with chicken beef and pork. Few disesh with prawns available. Yummy fried rice. Asin types of desert and cool drinks in menu. Cash and eftpos and credit card payments option available. All above have experinced by me few times. Love to go there again with family. Land marks are burger king and MacDonald on ellerslie panmure highway. Keep up good work Hansen. Well done to cooking staff and front end staff alway dress up professional uniform. As i mentioned great...

It seems through the years the quality has significantly gone down, the broth in there noodle soups use to be very tasty very beefy and rich, but seem to taste more and more like water compared to other places.

This place is popular as every time i have visited for lunch there seems to be a significant crowd, however in one particular visit my colleague explained that he thought this experience would be the last time he would visit this place.

We had sat down, only to be left alone for about 10 minutes with other customer arriving after and being served first, when we were served the waiter who you could tell did not want to be there just uttered "what to you want", another 10 minutes later we realised that customers who came after we had ordered were getting their food significantly faster. When our food did come it didn't have everything we ordered and only received parts of our order half way through our meal.

I usually give people and establishments the benefit, as sometimes people have bad days and sometimes problems arise due to no ones fault. I do hope Hansan gets better, it use to be the best tasting Vietnamese restaurant/cafe, but now i find that there are other smaller cafes that have risen in food quality...