Flowers of Vietnam

This restaurant was an absolutely pitiful experience. I cannot believe how bad it was after having colleagues and friends rave about it to me.

For the price, and the fact that you need reservations to get in, you'd expect this to be at least somewhat of a fine dining experience... It isn't. Not even a little.

1. This restaurant is very hard to find. There's no signs outside... That's because they don't own their own space. They rent space from a Coney Island during the evening hours. This has more impact than you might think (they're using the same kitchen, some of the food had charcoal flavored char on it that was very unpleasant).
2. The noise... You'd think you were in a bar. Communication with our waiter was difficult because of how loud it was, I could barely talk to my partner across our table.
3. It's cramped. The booths are probably fine, but the tables in the center of the room are so close together that you're practically bumping elbows and at the least, nothing in your conversation is private.
4. The service is not that great. To go against our expectations that it would be a nice dining experience, our waiter was dressed in a sports jersey and we could smell him from three tables away (having dinner at 6:30, they had only been open for an hour and a half). Getting our main course food took just slightly over an hour.
5. The food isn't that good. They use the same sauce on nearly everything. The grill they use (which obviously isn't regularly cleaned) imparts the same unpleasant charcoal-flavored char on everything they cook on it. It's unpleasant. We ordered one of the most expensive entrees on the menu which turned out to be a giant pile of under flavored rice with an over glorified pork chop sliced up, an egg, and some Chinese sausage (this part was pretty good and unique). For the price (>$40 for just that plate), we were very unamused. Some of the dessert items looked like they might be genuinely delicious... But at that point we were so fed up with everything about the restaurant that we refused to give them any more money, so we didn't order dessert. It was over $100 for the two of us, and I wouldn't pay even half that, given the quality, service, and atmosphere.

I'll never come back here. There's way better options.