Viet Lane — Restaurant in North Island

Viet Lane has been my fave restaurant for a few years now. However our last visit there was really disappointing. Really the only thing that made us reluctant to complain at the time was the lovely friendly staff, but we still left feeling disgruntled and hence this review. WHAT WENT WRONG: *The food was less than average standard, the desert was ABSOLUTELY AWFUL. *The price has skyrocketed since our last visit. *Portion sizes have decreased to a disappointing size. *The staff were super friendly and lovely (which is the only thing that has improved since our previous visits when staff were a bit slack), however EXTREMELY busy and rushed even tho the restaurant wasn't even half full... Why didn't they have time to serve us properly without running away? *Our serving staff didn't have time or bother to ask how our meals were, otherwise we would have made a point of telling them about the dessert.

MAINS: We ordered 2 new dishes we hadn't tried before and were disappointed with size and flavour of both dishes. There wasn't enough rice to go with the curries, but there was no way we were going to pay even more than we already had 😞 When we checked the orders, the prices had gone up by $9 each since our last visit!! We could have got larger curries for less than half the price at the food hall, and the foodhall would have been tastier, which is not what you expect when you go to a nice restaurant 😬

DESSERT: Thankfully we only ordered one because it was a total ripoff, and actually disgusting. I got my favourite, the Vietnamese coffee ice cream (which i get every time. I can't eat there without ordering the ice cream, it's super amazing!!!). Well this time I wished I didn't bother. They served me a plate with 3 of the tiniest scoops of ice cream I've ever seen, 1 tablespoon of whipped cream and a few raisins on top. It was half the size of the what they usually give me, and much more expensive.

I was blown away by this pathetic looking, tiny "dessert" so i looked at their FB page to see if my memory has failed me about the usual size and presentation of this dessert. Nope, only a week or so earlier they had posted a photo of this exact desert: large scoops of ice cream, covered in heaps of whipped cream and toppings, sitting on a lovely looking sauce with fresh berries decorating it. After seeing that I felt really angry and ripped off 😞

But the worst was yet to come!! The ice cream recipe has clearly changed. Instead of a delicious creamy coffee ice cream, we were served this gritty horrible stuff that (even tho it was tiny), neither of us wanted to finish because it was such a horrible texture. It was really unpleasant!! And it cost at least $12 from memory. Unbelievable. My theory is that it was made with milk powder instead of fresh cream maybe??

THE BOTTOM LINE: Yes food prices have gone up all over the country and we understand you have to either decrease your serving sizes OR increase prices... but we weren't expecting you to do BOTH, AND decrease good taste and quality on top of that!! Your once fantastic establishment that I've always highly recommended to everyone I know is now no longer even on my list of restaurants choices. Really really disappointed 😫 You've lost a supporter, a huge fan, and my free advertising. And now we have to find a new restaurant to go for all of our family celebrations. Viet Lane used to be our first choice, but now we...

Ordered spring rolls, fresh rolls, claypot pork and beef pho.

Spring rolls had a piece of blue plastic bristle. After complaining the Waitress with black / orange hair she answered that a new portion will be offered free of charge.

Manager came to the table also mentioned that the originally ordered spring rolls would be free of charge and apologised with an explanation. It was all fine till until those new portions weren’t coming out even though we were close to finishing our main meals, making me and my partner absurd and feeling completely unhappy.

Went up to pay, asked the waitress why those new servings of spring rolls weren’t served and did mention that I apologise if I was mistaken. She says there was miscommunication between what she said and what the manager said, which was very absurd. Manager was called by the waitress.

He says that the original servings were going to be free and that new portion of spring rolls weren’t supposed to be served. Original servings weren’t even done with. Told the manager and waitress that this has completely ruined our one night trip to Tauranga. The response was disgusting, “Just because of one spring roll? I felt sorry for you but now I don’t. Do you want those free portions for takeaway?”

We aren’t beggars, we aren’t poor. The service you guys have offered was disgusting, appalling, offensive and disrespectful.

I don’t recommended anyone to go to this place unless they want to feel guilty or offended. Not even worth one...

Food was pretty good. Service was weird. Went there today around 6 and there was three waitresses on. With few tables to tend, all three were standing in the dining area looking bored as opposed to being up by the front counter. Felt watched the entire meal. We were asked immediately upon sitting down if we would like something to drink, yes water please and we said we needed some time to look at the drinks menu. Waitress came back nearly immediately to ask if we wanted drink, still looking at menu. I said we needed a few more minutes as I had just said that. Came across too eager, because she came back only a few minutes later. After we had started eating, waitress came back to offer more drinks to our table. I had my empty water glass sat on the table for some time and had to ask for it to be filled all the while the wait staff standing in the dining area. Asked for some sauce with dinner and was brought a basket with empty sauce. Left the empty bottle clearly sat on the table and was not offered another one. Did not want to be a bother at this point. When we received our mains, I was still eating as the other guest had finished. Waitress came and asked to take his plate while I was still eating, all the while my empty, dirty, plate ( with knife and fork on top, pushed to the side ) from my starter was still sitting on the table, and well as the empty bottle of sauce ..... this made me feel rushed. This is a shame because I liked the food, but probably wont be back...