Saigon Garden — Restaurant in Winter Haven

The owner is very unprofessional and this restaurant is not toddler friendly. My 14 month toddler eats messy since she is still learning. Owner came to me and said that you should control your kid. I am not happy with that. And I will not come back for sure. I also do not suggest any family with smaller children come to this restaurant.

Response to the owner’s reply:

The owner’s response is completely dishonest. I ordered a kid’s meal for my 14 month old kid. She finished it and wanted more, so I gave her some of my pho. Like at home, she insisted on feeding herself and was actively eating—not playing. I was holding the bowl with both hands to prevent it from falling. There’s no way I could have been on my phone while doing that. I looked at my phone before handing her the bowl.

Is the owner suggesting my wife shouldn’t have been attending to our other child? That’s unreasonable.

Our younger child is only 14 months old. At that age, it’s normal to make a mess while eating—at home, she gets food on the floor, table, and even the chair. This behavior is developmentally appropriate.

The restaurant was nearly empty at the time, with many vacant tables. Our child didn’t disturb any other guests—if she had, we would’ve apologized. No one ever approached us with a complaint. In fact, the server checked in and didn’t mention any issue with the mess.

My mother felt bad and tried to clean up a bit herself. But then the server told us not to worry and that he would take care of it. I assumed this meant he preferred to handle the cleaning themselves. I took this as a sign that he was providing good service, so I gave him a larger tip.

Frankly, it seems the owner just doesn’t like children and likely has no experience raising them. This restaurant is not kid-friendly, and the owner's response reflects...

I dont usually write reviews but our server was absolutely the worst we have experienced while dining out. First thing she did after being seated, threw menu at us and told us immediately not for our kids to play with the chop sticks, even before she brought us water or asked to take our orders. After she brought out the water, while shaking her head every time she came to our table, spilled water on my son and stepped on him without saying a word. She brought out the food, with incomplete parts the the dish and when we asked for the missing stuff again brought while shaking her head, very passive aggressive manner. Through the whole process throwing dirty dishes next to us as loudly as possible and trying to avoid any contact with us and others. When we asked for check we asked for her name and then she went off yelling at us claiming she had brought us everything we wanted. We understood it might have been busy for her and thats ok, but to yell at us and treat us like dirt, especially to our kids, was unacceptable. Never have we had a waitress yell at us…oddly enough someone who seemed to be the owner, eating with his own kids next to us just watching and not intervening while his server continued to be offensive to us. During the chaos, could not remember her name who was very reluctant to give to us, i would describe as short both in height and hair style and likely of Vietnamese decent by her accent. Another observation was that the owners kids were drinking from bottled water not from the water they give you, which begs question about whats really in the water. Btw food was not good at all. Will not be going back. If you see that server, would avoid that place like a plague. Worst experience to date, especially given given our kids shock by her yelling. Will not be coming back and i suggest you do the...

The food that we ordered was mediocre. But the real issue is the owner hien’s attitude towards her customers

One of the dishes we ordered was chicken pad Thai. It was extremely salty and not eatable. We called the waitress and told her the issue and requested her to take it back and cancel the dish.

The owner hien came out with a confrontational attitude and you could see she was angry and proceeded to tell us that it was her recipe and no one has complained before. My response was the dish is too salty and we cannot eat it.

She said That next time we should tell the waitress when ordering it that we want the dish less salty than normal? How were we supposed to know that her dish was going to have excessive Amounts of salt?

We told her that you cannot fix this dish and just take it off the bill and we will pay the rest of the bill.

She was so rude and told us whether you eat it or not, I will not take it off the bill and that her food is very good.

We are from New York and we know how Vietnamese food is supposed to taste.

In the end we paid the bill including the dish we did not eat and left.

I will never visit this restaurant due to the owners horrible attitude towards her customers. The food is not anything to talk about compared to other vietnamese restaurants. I have never experienced a restaurant owner so confrontational over one dish. She has no respect for her customers!

I can only imagine if she treated us like this, how she must be treating her...