Nam-Viet Restaurant — Restaurant in Arlington

I have been to Nam Viet a few times. The food is always of good quality with generous portions sizes. The last time I visited was no exception. However, I did receive very unprofessional treatment from the waiter during my last visit.

During my last visit, I came by myself and felt the service was a bit lackluster. After I finished my first cup of water, the waiter put the entire pitcher on my table expecting me to “self-serve” myself instead of re-filling my cup. The moment they brought over my check, they quickly cleared everything on my table and I felt like they were rushing me even though the restaurant had plenty of space and no one was waiting.

I wanted to stress: all of this is ok and not the reason for my review, though I thought it warranted a lesser tip than I usually give.

What I call “unprofessional treatment” that warranted this 2-star review occurred when I paid for my food. A waiter who did not take my order nor serve me the food gave me the check. When he took the checkbook and saw my lesser tip, he angrily shouted “no tip for me?!” He slammed the checkbook on a nearby empty table and expected me to give him more money. I was shocked and felt humiliated as I think other patrons were looking at this exchange. I sheepishly gave another dollar and quickly left.

I believe tips are 100% at the discretion of the customer and how much they believe should be given as a reflection of the service they felt they received. It is unacceptable and unprofessional for the waiter to publicly lash out at the customer for any reason. If the waiter earnestly wanted to learn how the service could improve to get a better tip in the future, he should return to the customer’s table and kindly ask, instead of publicly lashing out at a nearby empty table like a petulant child.

Of the few poor reviews for Nam Viet I’ve seen on Google, almost all complaints are service related. It appears staff (specifically Waylon Huynh) has been responding to all complaints, which denotes excellent responsiveness! Unfortunately, it appears that the responder gives a rebuttal to every single sentence of the complaint and rarely acknowledges any fault or accepts personal responsibility. This negates any sincerity to the apology in the response. By your food and portion size alone, I can see why Nam Viet has 4.5 stars. I see great potential in this restaurant, a true staple in Clarendon no doubt! But if your service was a little more professional and you all sincerely sought to improve from these service complaints, I believe you can do even better and continue to compete with the best restaurants popping up in this pricy neighborhood....

I haven't been in a while but recently ordered carry out and sadly Nam Viet is not what it was in the past. Every dish lacked flavor, the pork belly was inedible, rubbery and just a total waste of time and money. Mrs Thoi’s garlic noodles with Maryland lump crab was mostly noodles and garlic with tiny and I mean tiny slivers of a few bell peppers and carrots with two small pieces of what looked and tasted like canned crab. It was a total let down. The staple pork skewers over vermicelli was bland and not seasoned. The shrimp and scallops was missing for my order and btw you can’t call the restaurant, they don’t answer and if you leave a voicemail they won’t respond. The only way I can dispute this is to go to the restaurant which is a pain. The crispy rolls were great and busting with flavor but the garden rolls were 95% noodles and a tiny piece of mint, lettuce and two tiny shrimp. The crepe flavor was good but overcooked. Rice Paper’s crepe is the best locally. Every dish we had with noodles, the noodles were in a rectangular shape like they come out of the packaging, no seasoning just a big pile of tasteless noodles. The truly odd occurrence was when I picked my order up the guy was clearly Richard the son but when I asked, he said he was just an employee, not the son. Everyone that I had over are long time fans of Nam Viet but unanimously agree the food isn’t what it used to be. DC is now filled with great Vietnamese restaurants and Nam Viet is no longer one of them.

Customer happiness seems to be a low priority.

*Update: I never received a receipt for my online order, so I had no way of knowing the shrimp and scallops didn’t go through. The restaurant ignored calls and voicemails. Only after emailing them with “I left the negative review” in the subject did they send my receipt—within seconds. Without the review, I doubt they would...

This actually saddened me to write this because it used be one of my favorite Vietnamese haunts. I first started going to this restaurant 20 years ago and hadn't been here in years. It has not aged well! First the Good: The food was excellent with big portions. The fresh rolls we had with shrimp were light, healthy and flavorful (I think with mint). Lemon beef dish was great and seafood noodle very satisfying. They need 1/2 portions though. The Bad: We had 3 adults and 1 Five year old child and the all in bill (food, tax and tip) was almost $200. Which made the cool and at times surly service a big problem. We asked if they had child portions "no we don't do that." So we had to order $17 chicken and rice for our boy. We were going to take the unused chop sticks "no we reuse the chopsticks." . We arrived at 7PM and at 8:05PM (their closing time is 8 I guess) they turned out 1/2 the lights in the restaurant while we were still finishing! Never good idea to push patrons out in this way. The tone from our waiter was always stern and judgemental never saying I'm sorry or please. OK, maybe cultural, but I'm sorry it's not going to fly at those prices, even in Clarendon. Our experience was soured by the service, basic unfriendliness and unwillingness to accommodate our child. I hope they can train their staff on what good service means , until then we...