Bambu Vietnamese — Restaurant in Colchester

I'd be very surprised if any of these people serving food in this restaurant have been anywhere near Vietnam in the last decade, maybe online, but that has to be the closest. The food was honestly appalling. As in most restaurants, the food they dug out of the freezer to be ( hurriedly ) deep fried, it was cold in the middle, I pointed this out to the waiter but all I got was a ' sorry ', bearing in mind the health implications, not even an attempt to reheat it. Everything was microwaved as it had very little taste with certain dishes having hot spots, the so called ( minimal ) veg curry tasted of uncooked curry paste, dense and way too thick. I've not long returned from Vietnam, second time in seven months, I ate in all types of establishments, beach side restaurants, street vendors small cafes etc, and nothing came anywhere close to the dismal attempt at Vietnamese food this restaurant is serving. Resembles nothing I ate in Vietnam. An abhorrent representation of what should be an excellent tasty culinary experience. No, the food that wasn't properly reheated, wasn't removed from the bill. I'll give them 1 out of 10 as they were open and I was able to wash my hands in...

We tried Bambu for my partner’s birthday & were so disappointed.

First impressions were that the prices are sky high, which I wouldn’t mind paying if the food was of good quality.

The starters we received were ok. We ordered the ribs which arrived tiny & very dry. I also found that the salt & chilli flavour was very inconsistent with most ribs tasting completely flavourless. The skewers were nice, but I found the sauce way too sweet.

For mains I got the Bò Lúc Lác rump steak. For £16.95 you get a bowl of chewy beef pieces in a cheap watery sauce, no rice or any kind of accompaniment to substantiate the price tag. The taste & texture were very similar to a cheap Chinese takeaway dish and very unappetising.

Staff were considerate of our request to try a different dish on the menu as I couldn’t continue with the rump steak pieces. I ordered the crispy vegetable dumplings which tasted a little more flavourful.

Overall, we were so disappointed by this experience & hope this was a one off bad run for the restaurant. I’ve heard great things from friends & seen glowing reviews from past customers. However, we will not...

Cozy and quality probably best describes my experience. The restaurant itself is pretty small, with just enough room for a single person to move around at any one time, but for good reason, the restaurant itself isn't big enough for the amount of people that want to eat here. And they've made the most of the space to accommodate as many people as they can.

The food is amazing, and very reasonably priced. There was a big group of us, and I guess my biggest issue was that we ordered 4 mixed starter platters, of which 2 meat and 2 seafood. We were delivered 2 platters, but there was no communication to let us know that they'd mixed the platters together, so instead of receiving 2 meat platters they'd put it onto one platter, we thought we were getting another 2 platters, but soon realised everything had been condensed. Which is not a problem as it worked well but more communication in future could avoid any disappointment.

Shame we all live far away or I'm sure it would be a...