The Viet Kitchen Cotham Hill — Restaurant in Bristol

We went back tonight, 3 months after leaving a full 5 star review across the board and honestly had the WORST time.

We arrived and they didn't have our booking, we were sat at a super wobbly table which was squished right up next to other tables, we had to keep moving whenever the waitresses went past with other peoples food, had our order taken, drinks delivered and after 40 minutes of waiting and seeing multiple tables people who arrived after us having their food delivered I asked about our food. They had lost our ticket. They said the kitchen would get our food done straight away.

They walked over with our drinks order, saw we already had received (and finished) our drinks and just threw the new ones out.

We were given our spring rolls which were not cooked, raw batter on the inside.

After 20 more minutes we saw our exact order being given to several different tables (it was 2x Banh mi & chips, not a time consuming meal to make) our new ticket clearly hadn't been pushed up the queue to be cooked quickly, so we paid for our drinks and left, hungry and disappointed with this restaurant firmly removed from our "to go" list.

Honestly mistakes happen, a ticket can get lost, but the way they dealt with it was appaling. It's a Saturday night so we have had to settle for Subway for dinner as it's now too late to get a table...

We wanted to try this viet place for a few months and heard it was good. We finally got round to do this with some friends as a nice Saturday lunch gathering. Everyone arrived within 15mins of our booking time. As we arrived separately some of us needed a bit more time on the menu but the staff came back very quickly to push for our orders. With a big group ordering of course would take time but the staff was not patient and gave us black face. Her voice is also not friendly. The food was only ok, gyoza is very dry, summer rolls are better but it had to be taken back into the kitchen to cut into smaller sharing size, the beef pho soup is alright. One of the serving staff is particularly moody and pushy and not helpful. They seemed to be staff sufficiently but when we asked for a saucer it never arrived. Dish prices are reasonable but the bad service and below average food quality didn’t justify paying £20+ per person. Would not...

Food: I had the classic beef pho, fried chicken bao and iced Viet coffee. Coffee was good. Fried chicken had a good batter and the batter was fresh and crunchy. Chicken a bit dry. Bao texture was a bit gummy and wet for me. I prefer a fluffier texture. The beef pho was a bit disappointing unfortunately. The chilli, cilantro, Thai basil (?) were fresh and good, and noodles had good texture (and large portion! I shouldn't have ordered the baos as well) but I found the broth to be a bit disappointing. The beef was overcooked and chewy in my opinion, but they gave a good portion of it and they were nicely thin-sliced.

Service: fairly friendly once I got their attention, but was slightly slow. I guess they only had about two waiters for more than 10 tables. The wait for food was reasonable.

Atmosphere: good I think. Clean and nice decor....