Grilled Ginger Vietnamese Restaurant — Restaurant in Fayetteville

Update November 2018: Unfortunately I had to remove stars after a second visit.

We arrived at dinner time during peak hours. The experience started off with prompt service and delicious food. Sadly, we encountered three problems.

The first (relatively minor) problem was we were waited on by three servers. One server took the drink and appetizer order. A second took the meal order. A third came out later and was introduced as our waitress. Between the three servers, requests such as for a spoon, for sauce, etc. were forgotten about, forcing us to ask multiple times.

The second (relatively minor) problem was an issue with a drink order. My dinner companion was unsatisfied with the drink. But having multiple servers compounded the problem. We were told that the manager would come out to speak to us, but we waited until our check came out and had to ask again until someone finally went to get her.

When the manager did come out, things continued downhill. The manager argued with us about the drink. In her defense, she offered to comp us with another drink or a dessert--but by that point the situation had escalated and my dinner companion was so livid about arguing over a drink that instead we got up to pay and leave. It was an unfortunate way to end a dinner.

Original Review: Good food, good atmosphere, friendly staff.

We had an order of Pho, chicken and rice off the kid's menu, bubble tea, and a coconut.

The pho was good. The pho runs from about $12-$15 depending on which one you get (menu is online). I am by no means a pho connoisseur, but the pho was pretty much inline with expectations--which is perfectly fine and what I was looking for.

The chicken and rice from the kid's menu was huge. It was much bigger then expected. The chicken had little seasoning, which is good if your little ones don't like strong or exotic flavors. An older kid, though, might find it bland. The kids menu does have a small pho, as well as a couple other choices. Kids menu prices were about half of adult prices from what I recall.

The bubble tea was great. Often when I order drinks like Thai iced tea, the glass seems to be mostly ice with a little bit of tea. It makes me so angry, I have resolved to dock a full star for such abuses. Happily, this was not the case, and I enjoyed the bubble tea.

As for the coconut, there's not much to say other than it was fresh, and we always enjoy drinking fresh coconuts with cute little umbrellas on top.

We arrived at the restaurant about 30 minutes before closing. We expected to be rushed, but happily the staff was very friendly and never made us feel hurried to order or finish eating. Probably due to the time we were there, service was...

I visited this place recently and felt compelled to write this and use my voice in order to warn others.

On a seemingly unassuming day, with me and my mother both being in high spirits, we decided to try this restaurant out because we were just visiting the area and as soon as we walked in, we were ignored by the older lady behind the counter, but to give full disclosure, she did appear to be on the phone or something.

Nevertheless, we waited until she finished, which she did and still didn’t acknowledge our existence.

Minutes go by as we stand awkwardly in the front with numerous other guests already sitting down dining when a young waitress comes up to us and greets us nervously and says she’ll be back with us in one second….shortly thereafter, the older lady behind the counter proceeds to finally acknowledge us (seemingly not noticing that someone else had already attended to us) and hostile yells, “has someone helped you yet?!” and before we could answer she yells again “has someone helped you yet [or what]?!” I instantly respond back with a “yes, but we are waiting on your hostess” and she rolls her eyes.

So here is where I insert that we both are African American and that I feel this experience largely was due to race as she tried to speak to us in a condescending tone, which seemed to be in stark contrast to how other people were treated.

It is unfortunate because we had driven over an hour to simply try something different and had decided on this place randomly, but ultimately ended up leaving and never ordering and eating because of the energy that we were met with.

We figured it would be best to leave and drive back home with empty stomachs than to spend a dime here.

So, for anyone else reading this please become conscious of the respect that you deserve and on how your money is used to support businesses like this who do nothing to help your own community.

Start using your rights as well as your personal choices the right way.

Choose somewhere else.

Because if I could rate this place a 0 for how I felt after visiting, I would, but of course Google doesn’t have that option.

So, long summary shortened, I'll never come back here again, and I definitely would not recommend it to anyone else, who wants to be more selective on where they spend their hard-earned...

First of all, I'd like to say that this is my first ever experience with with Vietnamese food. Let's get to the "bad" (not even bad, just small minor inconveniences)... My partner ordered a nice Asian beer and the menu said it was draft. They bring out a can but the beer itself is named "draft". It was a small mistake on our part. Next, the host who sat us explained how ordering and getting a server's attention worked. He spoke low and fast so it was gard to hear but it was easy to figure out and the shell had instructions on it. I originally ordered the ginger whole tilapia, but was informed by our very apologetic server that they stopped making it last week. It would have been nice to have been marked on the menu but that's okay, no big deal.

Now onto the good... The menu is very varied and accommodating, with clear descriptions and choices for people who are vegetarian, who only eat seafood, those who avoid pork etc. We ordered the fresh spring rolls as an appetizer, the hot seafood pot with crunchy rice, and grilled pork vermicelli. The spring rolls were very fresh and after trying it dipped in the peanut sauce, I literally shed a tear. It was so fresh and flavorful. My partner's grilled pork vermicelli was phenomenal, with fresh ingredients and cooked elements. The pork had amazing flavor profile. My hot seafood pot was so delicious, had a plentiful amount of each seafood, and the crunchy rice was a nice contrast to the soupy pot. Everything was high quality and well seasoned.

Our service was immaculate. The server was very apologetic about the small inconveniences and knowledgeable about the menu. Our food came out in a timely manner. The (I'm presuming) owner was at the register and was very friendly as we paid the bill and she said "Come back and bring friends!" We certainly will! The restaurant was clean and beautifully decorated.

Overall, I highly recommend Grilled Ginger, especially for a date and to try something new out of your comfort zone. I feel like the price greatly reflects the high quality ingredients and portion sizes. We will be back...