Chef Papa Vietnamese Kitchen LIC — Restaurant in New York

Do NOT eat here. I found a bug crawling next to my lettuce — no wings, just crawling around — absolutely disgusting. I asked the staff to take it back and make a new one, which they did. But when the bill came, I asked for a discount on the dish (which had the bug in it) — as any decent restaurant would do. The manager or owner came over and told me it “wasn’t their fault” because the lettuce is “fresh.” Yes, you read that right — apparently, a bug in your food is my problem, not theirs. Not a single apology. Nothing. Just pure attitude and zero accountability.

Oh, and the egg roll? $4 for something literally the size of my pinky. Absolutely laughable and insulting for the price.

The food itself is average at best — and that’s being generous. Combine that with this terrible customer service, defensive management, and the fact that hygiene clearly isn’t a priority… this is a place I will never return to. Spend your money somewhere that values their customers and serves food without bonus insects.

UPDATED Response to the reply below: John, your response honestly says everything customers need to know. You completely miss the point. Your ‘solution’ was that if I didn’t reorder the dish, it wouldn’t be on my bill — as if that somehow makes it acceptable that you served me food with a bug in it. That’s not a solution, that’s deflection.

And let’s talk about how you proudly mention that you remade the dish ‘at no extra charge’ — as if there was ever a scenario where a restaurant charges extra to fix a mistake like that. That’s not a favor. That’s literally the bare minimum of basic food service standards.

On top of that, hiding behind ‘fresh produce’ as an excuse is baffling. No — using fresh ingredients is not a free pass to skip properly washing and prepping food. If anything, it’s an admission that your kitchen didn’t do its job.

Instead of taking responsibility, you doubled down, deflected, and even tried to paint me as ‘unreasonable’ for expecting basic accountability. No apology, no ownership — just excuses and attitude.

If this is how you handle a food safety issue, it makes me seriously concerned about what else goes unchecked in your kitchen. Customers deserve better.

Updated response 2: I appreciate your response, though I find the personal remarks both unnecessary and untrue. I never threw a tantrum, nor did I ask for my entire meal to be comped—those are simply false claims. I politely accepted your explanation in person. Sharing my experience online through a review is not a tantrum, it’s honest feedback.

I only asked for the dish with the bug to be discounted, which felt like a reasonable request given the situation. My review reflects my personal experience from this one visit, which unfortunately wasn’t a positive one.

At the end of the day, this is a valid food safety concern. Rather than acknowledging that, your response seems more focused on dismissing my experience and normalizing something that should never happen. If this truly is rare, offering basic care and professionalism shouldn’t be difficult.

I hope future guests are met with a more thoughtful response when concerns like this arise.

That’s all I have to say on...

I went here for lunch, twice, food is pretty average but service is horrible! I’m not sure why this place has such a high rating! The waitress was so rude and made me feel very unwelcome, such a negative vibe here. Hope you can do better job on training your employees.

Updates to John Truong: It just bothers me to see the owner or manager of this place is constantly arguing or being sarcastic here with every customer who left bad reviews. I know it can be frustrated but do you really did any reflections on yourself as a business owner?! I haven’t seen even one reply that shows this restaurant owned any of their mistakes GENUINELY - from overpricing, bugs in customer’s food, employees with horrible attitude etc, you name it! You said sorry but we all know you don’t really mean it so as a customer I should NOT expect you to make any improvements!

You are a retailer, you should be humble and OWN YOUR MISTAKES and try your best to make improvements especially when your customers are treated unfairly in your restaurant. That waitress who served us was rolling her eyes when we tried to change a seat, and your solution which you offer here is telling us to go somewhere else, excuse me?!?! It just blows my mind to see people who manage this place have such a low emotional intelligence and such an arrogant attitude towards their own customers who are willing to spend money on your business to support you, but it seems you don’t value their feedback but only be okay with compliments! You guys definitely give me no reason to recommend your restaurant to anyone and I’m really hesitate to give you another try to show my support.

Horrible experience here! Nightmare like customer service!

2nd Updates: to everyone who is able to see this. Please open your eyes and take a closer look! I already gave you guys my honest opinion in my review that training your staff better to be not rude or rolling her eyes when your customers want to change a seat because we ordered a lot! And I’m not able to tell you how to train your employees, that’s your job!!!!

And I don’t see anything wrong with me left 13 reviews same day that I’ve been accumulated for long time and didn’t find time to do it in different times. You dare to tell your customers when can they leave comments now? You’re ridiculous!!!

Guys, this owner definitely has serious issues by the way he is attacking customers online just because their customers speak up their negative experience about his business! If any of you want to PAY for a horrible service and experience, you will definitely get what you are looking for here! This place is full of fake 5 star reviews even if the owner is trying to deny it everywhere, be careful DO NOT...

DO NOT EAT HERE - this place buys 5 star reviews by giving away a free thai iced tea because they got so many bad reviews due to their poor service, bad food and overpricing. 4.8 is NOT their actual rating!

We are new to this country and came here as a group and spent $200+. We ordered a lot and requested to have a bigger table by changing seats, the waitress seemed very annoyed with a nasty attitude you could tell all that from her face. I think maybe because there were a lot of dishes to move or she just simply had a bad day, but we’re very offended and lost our appetite. My friend E Y left a 1 star review because she was the only one have a gmail by then. We all hope for a potential change and a sincere apology from people who’s in charge there, and we all agreed to let the business know we’re very unhappy and suggested them to train their employees better, as well as pointing out it’s not okay to not own any of their mistakes but blame everything on customers, then rudely asking their customers to go somewhere else if they’re not happy about their food or service. Shockingly the owner of this place just lashed out at my friend and verbally attacked her openly by even calling her a coward because she didn’t put her actual name on her Google account, and accused her for making things up that we never went there. You can find a full story under her review. This is unacceptable and irresponsible!

It is extremely improper and harmful as a business owner to have a such low class behavior towards his customers but it’s because of his employees are not well trained at all. If you take a look, it’s easy to find out this owner actually verbal attacked almost every customer who left a bad review very often, even to a person FOUND A BUG in his food… it’s just unbelievable… and I feel really bad for that dude!

We all don’t believe the owner is a good person privately as he mentioned in the other post due to all those mean words came out from his mouth and heart to attack customers just because they left bad reviews, but he hardly reflects his own responsibilities and mistakes.

This is not the place you want to go and support, and this type of business owner should not be welcomed into this nice community if there is no necessary changes.

No one should accept a fake and sarcastic apology from this place, and we will do all we can to let everyone know our horrible experience with ChefPapa LIC. This is not...