BOTEA Woodfire — Restaurant in Da Lat City

Good steak, good vibe. Come here with my husband for dining. We have wanted to be here for quite long time. The bistro have already decorated in Christmas theme, and it’s lovely. (By the way, I’d love to listen to Christmas carols toooo) We call lots of food to try: starters: marrowbones, foie gras; salads: dalat salad, baked veggies; main: wagyu beef, 28-day-dry-aged rib eye, a glass of sauvignon, 2 glasses of mulberry juice (iced). Extra from the resto: breads with compound butter, mulberry jam yogurts. Starter: Homemade breads and butter dish is quite good - vote for butter! The foie gras is delicious, I love the caramelized onions with balsamic vinegar, lovely dish. But the texture of it is quite crumbly. Still good though! The marrowbones is kinda greasy to me, served with garlic bread (I think for the absorbing purpose :)). Garlic breads are good, the bones come out good with onion but under seasoned. Salads: nothing special with Dalat salad, not recommended. baked veggies: nice smoking flavor, but we have problem with seasoning again. One side of the dish is light and the other is a bit salty. :))) how? Main courses: I order medium rare for my wagyu served with ginger, garlic, and wasabi (real wasabi, not horseradish paste!) it’s lovely. My hubby dish is dry aged beef, he order medium rare but get a medium one due to mistaken bill in the kitchen (there are 2 dry aged dishes at the same time: 1 medium and 1 medium rare, and they mix it up). Quite dry for the medium. side dish: potato mashed: need more butter, more salt, more pepper pls. Drink: Wine: light body and easy to drink wine, have some touch of cherry or cherry oak, kinda fruity and semi dry wine, but not what I am looking for. We cannot have much choice on glass as well. I’m a wine lover before being a pregnant woman haha. Mulberry juice I have order 2 glasses: The first one is good, the 2nd one, the sugar have not yet dissolved. Service: Good service overall (-): They have completely forget my pumpkin soup order and mistaken my medium rare steak. (+): so that I have yummy yoghurts...

Questionable service for interracial couples -- An American friend and I have recently dined here because it was one of his favourite restaurants in town (not any more).

All staff are Vietnamese and clearly knew I am too, but they barely said a Vietnamese word to me. From introducing the menu, taking orders to serving food, everything was conducted in English -- no staff had checked if I was okay with it, or tried to code switch even after being asked in Vietnamese.

The worst part to me was that the staff seemed to only talk to my friend, the 'white' guy. It's hard here not to feel insulted and marginalised in my own country.

To the restaurant: I'd suggest to train your employees to treat your customers fairly no matter where they come from. And please never assume everyone would speak English just based on his/her partner's look. Don't you think I'd appreciate the food more when it's introduced in our mother tongue?

P/s: We sent feedback to the restaurant after our meal. The owner apologised and offered to pay for that whole dinner, which we appreciated. But we declined the free-meal offer. The damage has been done, we'll just never go...

Ok this should have been all 5 star however the only option for dinner is a "set menu" for 675k dong per person. Unfortunately this is highly misleading as the menu is "very" confusing and despite our table of 6 all querying both the staff and owner as to what was or wasn't included in the set menu our "set menu" final bill was 1,830k dong per person!! Now for the 5 star - the 1.5kg tomahawk was superbly cooked, very tender and delicious sauces. The entre are all inventive, fresh and tasty. Staff young but very friendly and trying hard. With a clearer "set menu" layout our table of 6 would have walked out very very happy instead of somewhat peeved we had been highly misled in the set menu pricing. We politely passed this feedback to owner as we left - I hope subsequent reviews will confirm he has re formatted his menu to avoid the unpleasant after taste of...