Hoa Sen Vietnamese Street Food Restaurant — Restaurant in London

Ever since my favorite King's Cross Vietnamese restaurant, Viet Baguette, closed, I've been looking for a place to replace it. Their three specialties are crispy fried fat end,  Vietnamese braised pork, and roast meat with rice or rice noodles.

🚀 Later, when I browsed Xiaohongshu and saw that Hoa Sen had crispy fried fat end, I immediately called Vicci, who is also a loyal fan of Viet Baguette, and rushed to eat together.

⏳ When I went to eat Vietnamese food, I have always walked in. Seeing so many people in Hoa Sen, I really regret that I didn't make a reservation, but fortunately I only waited for 5 minutes to get a seat.

There are 2 of us, ordered 5 dishes, totall cost is £74

🥭 Mango Jellyfish Salad

This taste is really amazing! Although it's a bit too spicy for me, the combination of crispy jellyfish + sweet mango + fresh cucumber is simply amazing [but I drank a bottle of water after eating]

🍖 Vietnamese Braised Pork (Tender Pork Belly Stew)

This dish was only £6.5 at Viet Baguette, and it came with rice + a whole fried egg. Hoa Sen's price is  £11.9, and we also ordered rice for £3.5. But the taste is still very good, 99% close to VB's method, the meat skin is fried first and then stewed, the fat meat is soft and glutinous, the lean meat is delicious, and it is served with half a tiger-skin egg.

🍝 Cryspy Bagbagis & Toufu with Vermichelli Noodles

This dish was also £6 in VB, but only the crispy fried fat end and no other side dishes, Hoa Sen is £13.9. The taste of the crispy fat end is exactly the same as that of VB. I wonder if they got the chef from VB .

🦐 There is a gray shrimp paste (mắm ruốc) in the middle of this dish. The taste is salty and umami, but the smell is very strong. Most people are not used to eating it. I recommended that you taste it with a fork before deciding whether to use it with rice noodles.

The fried tofu is also delicious, crispy and dry, and the surface is not oily at all.

🐦 Roasted quail

It is a very authentic Vietnamese snack appetizer. The marinated quail meat is very delicious and juicy, the taste is delicate, and the bones are small.

🍥 Hanoi Style Banh Cuon Rice Rolls

Vietnamese rice rolls are different from Cantonese-style rice rolls and Hong Kong-style rice rolls. The skin is thin and tough, oily and smooth. We chose the pork flavor. The stuffing inside is fried minced pork + wood ear mushroom, and topped with...

[Fraudulent Practice (False Ads) Against Customer and Terrible Service at Hoa Sen]

The food here is decent—slightly overpriced, but acceptable overall. However, my recent experience with their service was extremely disappointing. Leaving it here for people to judge.

I ordered the “Hoa Sen Ice Milk Tea” (£5.50 for ~300ml, photo 1) expecting a freshly made Vietnamese milk tea from the bar, or any Vietnamese premixes at least. Instead, I was served what I immediately recognized as bottled Assam Milk Tea by Unif from China (priced £1.05 per 500ml or £4.09 per 1.5L, photo 2-3). To confirm, I politely asked a staff member (Waitress 1) if the drink served was indeed Unif Assam Milk Tea. Instead of answering, she smirked and walked away mid-conversation. I found this incredibly rude. Waitress 2 joined the discussion and said, quoted, “It doesn’t matter if we are serving Assam or not, but you should not talk to me with attitude.”

There are three issues with this statement: Customers are entitled to know what they are being served, regardless of the product’s branding (e.g., “Hoa Sen Ice Milk Tea”), as per the Food Information Regulations 2014 (photo 4) Asking a reasonable question is not an “attitude” issue—it’s basic customer service to provide a clear answer. She is redirecting the conversation to hide the False Ads issue.

When it became clear I wasn’t getting anywhere with the waitstaff, I asked to speak with the manager. Shockingly, the manager sided with the staff and said, quoted, “You shouldn’t speak with attitude, even if we serve you pee and brand it a milk tea is fine as well.”

This response was utterly unacceptable. Not only does it show a complete disregard for customers, but it also reflects a lack of professionalism and basic respect.

If you’re charging £5.50 for a drink, at the very least, be transparent about what you’re serving and train your staff to treat customers with respect. Based on this experience, I would not recommend Hoa Sen to anyone who values honesty or...

On 29th June, 2023, around 7:30pm, we asked for the bill with a company discount. The self-claimed manager had no idea what discount it gives to companies and claimed there is always no such type of discount. Rudely refusing to communicate with any other staff, she questioned us to show evidence to proof such discount exists which was ridiculously wrong. Without secured wifi, we had to use a hotspot on a mobile to show the email from my company with a laptop. She then point and touch the screen of my computer to look at the email, with clear statements in the email she still claimed there is no such discount, which we all got in the very same restaurant just weeks before. After some other staff tell her that this is a legit offer, she changed her argument and suggested we need to show her proof of a staff from that company, as if getting access to the company email is still not enough. I showed my staff card and she changed her argument again that everyone on the table have to show all of their cards to proof everyone is from the company. My guest at that time was already very embarrassed and we all felt humiliated. I then suggested I will pay for everything as a company dinner and the manager stormed away and come back throw the bill on the table. We get the 10% discount and paid the 12.5% service fee after all the hassle that costed each of us 30 minutes plus from the moment we asked for a bill. To me, food quality do not matter anymore in this occasion and unfortunately I cannot recommend this restaurant to anyone I know, purely due to the utterly poor professionalism of this unbelievable manager who manage the restaurant. I hope the restaurant owner will not tolerate this kind of behaviour, not even a single time, as this will seriously impact the reputation of the restaurant. At least for now and in the near future, you already lost everyone from my company, which may contradict to your original intention for giving our company...