Mama Lau & Oc — Restaurant in Orlando

If I could rate this place with negative stars, I would. We found this place because we were looking for some delicious Vietnamese food & the menu looked promising. We got to this restaurant around 7p. It took someone over 20 minutes to even greet us and take our drink order. We asked to place an appetizer first because we were starving and wanted something to snack on while we looked over the menu. We were told "no - you have to order everything at once" So since we didn't know what we wanted to order immediately - we had to sit and wait. Our drinks weren't brought to us until we knew what we wanted to order (15 minutes later). My husband ordered a beer and we had to ask our server 5x to bring it to us. We are a family of 6, so we had a significantly large order. After we placed our order - we watched 3-4 different parties come in, be sat, helped immediately, and food served. All the while we are still sitting, waiting for our food. Over an hour had passed and our food started trickling out. Beginning with the appetizers we ordered (OVER AN HOUR FOR APPETIZERS). We noticed that it was getting close to closing time for them so we inquired about 3 dishes we ordered that were never delivered. The gentleman we spoke with about it stated "we close at 9, you can't order anything else" when we explained these were things we ordered almost 2 hours ago - all I got was a blank stare. He let our server know the issue & she looked over at us and carried on with what she was doing. Zero regards for the fact that myself and two others in my family never received their dinner. At this point, I'm furious and contemplating just walking out - but I didn't. We sat there (obviously) done and ready for some to-go boxes and our check. Absolutely nothing from the wait staff. So finally I got up, tracked down boxes and our check. I had to double check our final bill because we didn't receive half of what we ordered. They left the things we never received on our bill and requested that we pay for them! We insisted they were taken off of our bill. Once that was settled I paid our bill and got out of there! It was almost 10pm at this point. We were there for THREE HOURS - didn't receive half of our food and received the worst service I could have imagined. My kids and I are still hungry, so unfortunately we will have to stop somewhere...

A disappointment from start. The ốc hương had a foul odor to it that I had to spit it and rinsed my mouth out before I could try the next dish. The sò was also chewy, not fresh. I am not so sure how to rate this restaurant. The rice was stiff and dry like it was sitting around in the kitchen for awhile or they didn’t cook with enough water or something. Their lẩu mắm and lẩu canh chua were average at best. Not enough vegetables as well. Lots of staff but not very professional. They ran around not knowing what were supposed to be on our table. In the beginning, we ordered 2 lau, they placed 1 stove top. Ugh! Better yet, they gave us stove tops that didn’t work. We asked for cooked sprouts to eat with pho but didn’t get it. They never remembered. We didn’t bother to remind them because they were already so confused with whatever was going on. Lots of disorganization! We ordered Ốc lên xào dừa, too but no toothpicks were given to us. And it was bad, not even sure how to describe it! It was just off and not the normal flavor we came to expect. After trying to eat a couple of ốc from this plate, we couldn’t eat anymore. So we basically paid $18 for 4 tiny ốc len. And the pork bellies that were in our lẩu had long hair on it. They didn’t even bother plugging them off. So gross! The food was not fresh. Of course, no one came out to ask us how was the food. They knew they had terrible food. We came because we thought it resembled the Lau va Oc in So Cal. Not even close! We gave them 2 stars because we feel bad for the young waitress who tried. Just hope they would read this and try their food with a bit more efforts. Train your staff to know what need to be on the table with the dishes and train your chef to prepare real fresh food. Get rid off all old, stale seafood in your freezer. Seafood is supposed to be fresh! Date your food so you know! Food was just awful! We paid around $200 for a very...

This restaurant specializes in Vietnamese-style escargot dishes, Vietnamese hot pots and other comfort food cuisines.

My favorite is their razor clams with sweet and sour tamarind sauce topped with crushed roasted peanuts and served with fresh Vietnamese coriander herb.

Pictured are: Fried balut duck egg then rolled in tamarind peanut sauce served with Vietnamese coriander - my addiction Grilled oyster - not good Grilled scallop -expensive/not good Canh chua hot pot - delicious!

Vietnamese-style escargot dishes ranges from $10-25 but whether it is all worth it or not depends on the quality and freshness of the escargot.

I honestly think #2 & 3 are overpriced. The grilled scallop was like one jumbo piece of scallop they sell for at least $10 a piece, it wasn’t cooked from a live whole scallop to begin with. The grilled oyster was very small in size and was over cooked.

Canh chua is a sweet and sour soup with main ingredients including tamarind pulp/juice, tomatoes, pineappple, colocasia gigantea, rice paddy herb, sawtooth herb, bean sprout, Thai chili peppers, fish and shrimp. Other vegetables may include okra, onions, Chinese celery, regular celery, and mushrooms. Canh chua soup is a comfort food in a Vietnamese family.

Customer service has always been a pleasant experience...