The Lighthouse — Restaurant in Cần Thơ

MENU AS OF APRIL 2023 UPLOADED

We ate here this afternoon as we fancied a change from local cuisine and found this place on Google. The prior reviews were mixed so we came with an open mind and were willing to dine here regardless.

The 3-star rating is a - rough - average of a combined rating between my partner and I. He thought it was a 3/5 and I thought 3 borderline 4. Reason being, frozen veg🫣. He ordered the mussel chowder and sadly, though the mussels were fresh tasting the use of frozen veg totally killed the vibe. On the other hand, my borderline 4-star rating was because the Barramundi Fish with Mashed Potato was decent. The vegetables on mine were luckily not your typical cube chopped lazy style! What we couldn’t fathom was why they’d gone to the effort to provide fresh veg for my dish yet not for his. Plus, a soup / chowder bowl really does rely on its ingredients for substance so fresh veg is a total must in that dish!

The barramundi fish was cooked well and came with a tasty herb butter sauce too. The mashed potato was also a great effort (in my personal opinion) as it was stiff and had the odd lump. I like it this way, though I’m aware most do not. This could therefore be an issue for another diner.

Aside from the food, the service was actually much better than anticipated given previous ratings but perhaps this was down to the fact we visited mid week & mid afternoon and were the only visitors in the restaurant for the entire duration of our meal. Beers on tap is also a bonus! The meal and a couple drinks together came to just short of a million Dong which was alright, though for that you’d expect fresh veg.

Side note: the complimentary nibbles provided before the meal were greatly appreciated (see video). Also, they were very generous to give two portions of peanuts before and after the meal to accompany beers which was nice.

The establishment itself is warm and welcoming. Staff were courteous and at hand. The decor and seating arrangements is plentiful with both indoor and outdoor options. Currently there seems to be a lot of construction work happening right outside the front so we opted for indoor seating. Location is great however, practically just off from the city centre and extremely easy to locate.

We would probably visit again but certainly...

Very uncomfortable experience whilst stopping here a drink. Drawn in by happy hour sign but the drinks were still quite expensive by Vietnamese standards. However we got a cocktail each, expecting them to be enjoyable because of the cost and nice look of the restaurant. In reality they were very disappointing - mojito was very watery and lacked flavour and the mai tai was very artificially sweet. We have got better drinks for half the price throughout the country. In fact it was the first bar I’ve ever tried to return the drinks and leave. This is where it got very awkward. After approaching the waitress in the nicest way I could I was just responded to with rudeness and dismissing my complaints. There was no solution posed and we were just made to feel pressured into paying whilst we sat at the table with our drinks getting warm. Eventually I went up again to ask for them to be remade. Once more, the waitress was rude and wouldn’t do anything for us. Luckily, the bartender was much nicer and was quick to jump in and say he would remake it. The drink still wasn’t nice but slightly better and I appreciated the effort to help us. Overall, very uncomfortable and unenjoyable experience. I can’t speak for the food, but with service like that I wouldn’t go to try...

We first came to Lighthouse Restaurant on Thursday Oct 5. We had a very pleasant experience. We were a family of 6 (4 adults and 2 children 3yr and 5yr old). Food was good and staff attentive. We decided to come back again the following night. Our experience was like night and day... It was horrible. While the server quickly placed the children's order, it was over a half hour before we were able to place our order. In fact I had to grab a server from another table to place our order. We had already been at the restaurant for an hour. All other patrons had been served. We ultimately requested all our food be put in take out containers to come home. There was no attempt to compensate for any of the terrible service and only faint attempts at apologizing after considerable efforts made to justify the terrible service and experience. While the food was good, I would never attend this establishment based on...