Blue Parrot Mexican Grill — Restaurant in Da Lat City

Edit, ran out of space. Shorter now. I'm an accomplished chef by the way, so you can trust me about what I say about the food itself.

Was the food itself bad? Nope! But that's where the good part ends. Apparently this place is owned by an American/Canadien? I may be wrong, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he is no longer the owner or, at the very least, is not fully managing it. That being said, if he is, he ought to be ashamed of himself for lying. And I HATE being lied to.

The first thing is that from all the reviews, and worse, their own online menu, including here on Google maps, is that HALF of the food you think you can order is simply......gone.....not available. You can see my screenshots. So my plan of ordering an enchilada plate and fish tacos, wasn't to be. No burrito bowls, no enchiladas, no fish tacos/burritos, no steak tacos/burritos/quesadillas, no chili colorado, no deep fried ice cream for dessert (and thus no dessert on the menu), no strawberry margaritas, no barbacoa tacos/burritos/quesadillas, no carnitas tacos/burritos/quesadillas, and yet all of these things are still on their online menus. Being honest and having integrity means updating your menu as appropriate instead of dashing the hopes of all incoming customers by lying about what you serve. The tortilla chips......aren't. Some kind of cheap imitation, made from corn flour, that they make themselves. I did not care for them. You CANNOT call something a tortilla chip when they clearly are NOT that. Call them something unique, like Homemade Corn Flour Chips or something. Be honest. The guacamole. Edible? Sure. Flavor? Not too bad, overall. Made daily from fresh avocados? No way in hell. My best guess is they are buying the actual guacamole (just minced up avocados in bulk (100%)) and then adding their pico de gallo to it, which is a clever idea, but that alone does NOT make it homemade. I KNOW the difference and the few others who commented about this in their reviews are also correct. So why lie about it? I had previously read the reviews, and many mentioned the lack of cheese on the dishes. Not necessary really as I have yet to buy anything at any restaurant, anywhere in Vietnam, where a dish that comes with cheese, had enough of it on there. I get that proper cheese is expensive here, but you either do it right, charge an appropriate amount for the dish, or go home and don't do it. Armed with that knowledge, I asked for extra cheddar cheese on the quesadilla and with that, it was fine. The burrito normally only comes with Mexican Queso cheese, which isn't to my taste but worse, there's so little on it as to be completely invisible inside the burrito. Even worse, I ordered 2X extra cheddar cheese in there and there was NONE in it. Not melted, no orange cheese anywhere in the entire burrito. (The VN wife of the owner(?) swears she put 2x in there, 50g total (for 50,000 vnd lol) and even showed my wife a video of her putting 'something on someone's burrito', but again, I'm a chef and I know better). The chicken quesadilla had so little chicken on it, I couldn't even feel or taste it. They had an option for extra chicken, for even more money, which I thought was odd in the first place as I've never even thought to add more meat to a quesadilla.....have you? Nope. Well, now we know why they offer it. I saw many reviews comment about how nice and friendly and helpful the staff was. And when we arrived, this seemed to be true. Until I started asking about all the issues, and our waitress, very quickly, didn't understand English. At first, I thought it was true. But then I witnessed her having an incredibly well said English conversation with a neighboring table about all kinds of stuff. Typical, shamed response. Salsa, pico, taco sauce were all good. Food tasted ok even with the lack of cheese but not very authentic. Hadn't eaten a thing all day, so I ate most of it. Couldn't taste ANY tequila in...

You need a lesson in grace and decorum.

The owner told us he has lived in 74 counties. But he has 0 respect for other cultures.

I think the great ratings of this place are because of free food for good ratings. (You see this quite often).

Ok food. But uncomfortable experience.

We found Blue Parrot on Google like I’m sure a lot of westerners do.

And the experience started off well, the place was empty (now we know why) but nice and clean and there was a beautiful parrot.

An American/Canadian gent came out and greeted us and said we could take a picture with the Parrot, which I did. Loved it. He was friendly!! ( I thought)

Everything was going well. Lots of good options on the menu.

We went for chicken tacos, a burrito bowl, and chips and dip.

Tacos and the chips and dip were quite nice. Burrito bowl as average as this place.

Although has to be said I don’t know much about Mexican food. I could make better Mexican food myself.

But things soured quickly because the owner spoke to us the entire time.

Some people might like this. But I think it’s extremely overbearing.

If I come for lunch with my partner I do not expect a stranger to sit opposite me and speak at me the entire time.

The only way I could have stopped it was if I literally told the owner to go away. I guess he does not have the emotional intelligence to recognise this.

He also said a lot of strange things that made us uncomfortable.

He was saying how it is extremely difficult to hire Vietnamese people because they are lazy and unreliable. He said this with his Vietnamese wife and staff in the room. I said to him trying to give him a chance to say something positive “Well you must like something about Vietnam if you choose to live here?” He said “I live here because I have a wife and kids here”. I’ve loved visiting Vietnam and I would never be so disrespectful about a country I’m visiting.

He said how people in Vietnam can be bought and bragged about bribing a government official to not pay child support for his kid with his ex wife. He kept mentioning his ex wife during this story which led to his current wife leaving the room. He also was telling us how little his current Vietnamese wife makes. “$600 a year” why are you telling your customers this? Show your wife some respect.

When my food arrived I made a point of not starting my meal until he stood up and walked away to try to maybe give the guy a hint. Which he did!! But he came back a couple of minutes later and started talking about how he had the worst diarrhoea of his life when he visited Phu Quoc. I cut his story off to tell him his story was inappropriate conversation when I’m trying to eat. He said sorry. Waited a moment, then starting talking about Imodium. Honestly he was like a TV character.

I’ve seen all the negative reviews get attacked on here by the owner.

I’m quite interested to see what this obtuse foul man replies to me.

I feel disappointed in myself that I shook his...

We decided to venture out tonight ,and try a different cusine from a different country/ culture ..

And searching through various search engines, we came across this eatery ..

A very colourful and imaginative interior design.. Used bicycles, sewing machine stands, even an old part of a tractor have been used to create tables ready for dining on.. Wonderful idea in my opinion.. The cusine is Mexican and the tastes , aromas and textures were great... All cooked to order and we simply could not fault the cusine in any way whatsoever. A real authentic taste of Mexican cusine...

The owners are Mexican & Vietnamese, and they've created a truly authentic restaurant..

So if you would like to taste something different while traveling Vietnam and you're in Dalat, I suggest you dine here..

And value for money per person was absolutely great...

Now, as I always write in relation to hospitality venues, staff can make or break how a business succeeds or fails in my opinion..

Here the staff were extremely customer service focused..

Attentive..caring, polite and very informative in regards the cusine as they delivered it to your table

I fully appreciate that it's a team effort and I wish to say well done to all concerned in making our visit so wonderful..

But I must mention both Thoa &Tuan.. These two were genuinely so delightful and interested in where as customers, we were from?

They were just two very caring individuals who served us with politeness and professionsim beyond their years..... A real credit to the...