Banh Mi Craft — Restaurant in Palmerston North

I've been going to the Bean Cafe for the past 20 years. So, when the previous owners sold it to the current owners, I knew they would have big shoes to fill.

We've been twice, and both times have been extremely disappointing. The first time we went, we ordered our usual favourites. Unfortunately, nothing tasted the same. It just felt like a poor imitation of the food that we've loved for the past 20 years.

But never mind, we'll give them a second chance. A few months later, we returned and this time, we ordered the two vietnamese noodle soup dishes (the beef and the chicken). The new owners are vietnamese and surely, they can't muck their national dishes up. We were absolutely wrong.

Beef pho should have a strong, rich, almost oily broth, but what I got was tastless and flat. It had just a few thin slices of beef and the meatballs were chopped in half, which made it seem cheap. Worse, the meatballs tasted sour-y, like they were off.

The chicken pho was just as bad. The chicken wasn't too bad; it was tender. But the broth was about as tasty as warm tap water.

Look, we know that we can't compare the old Bean Cafe with the food from the new owners. But their newly-introduced pho dishes, which should be their signature dish, was probably THE most disappointing pho I've ever had in my life.

I think it's fair to say that I'm not going...

Me and my family was ignored by the waiter/front desk guy, he clearly saw us waving and looks at us before heading to another to table to take their orders then proceeded to ignore us until we had to get up and order at the front. This had gotten so bad that one old man had walked out since the waiter ignored him. However I would like to add the chef who served us was a middle aged lady who was really nice and polite, complete opposite of the grandpa.

The wait time was exceptionally long for no reason, we waited an hour total before we got out first dish, there was only 1 other table with a couple to give them the benefit of the doubt however, but it still doesn't explain how we waited 30-40 minutes for 2 dishes after the couple was done.

The food was considered OK at best, the pho beef noodles wasn't strong or hot, it was warm and slightly tasteless, the only strong taste was chilly powder, and the beef was thing and yet hard to chew.

I had ordered the same food as my cousin but the portions came out completely different, I had more chicken while my cousin had mostly vegetables. Very disappointed, I have never experienced this in my life before, and would never come back, I will be going to saigon or the Vietnamese place at the plaza. I wish bean cafe would come back and take...

Banh Mi Craft Restaurant Palmerston North: Bad service and undercooked food. Waited 50mins for food to be served. 4 other groups of customers (sizes between 2-3) came right after us (2) and all got served before our food came out. When one of the dishes (beef stir fry noodles) finally came out, it was incorrect, which was taken back to the kitchen and the correct dish was served 10mins later. The beef was tough and overcooked while the other bits were quite undercooked and overall very poorly mixed. The second dish we ordered came out in between the mix up, a pan fried salmon dish. The salmon was well cooked but the vege portion was undercooked and the overall meal was underwhelming in comparison to what's described in the menu. The middle aged lady serving food from the kitchen was apologetic about the delays, however, it was difficult to communicate in english due to the language barrier, so we spoke to the male staff member instead. When we spoke to him about the poor quality meal, he didn't showed care for our feedback, neither did he bother to provide any remedy to the poor service and food provided. We are unlikely to return to this restaurant due to the staff's lack of responsiveness to our dissatisfaction and underwhelming...