JW Café — Restaurant in Hà Nội

First thing first I’m a foodie. Sorry to say. Me and my friends got bamboozled. There was a lot of hype about this place. Saw YouTubers “promoting” for the place. Looked like it was worth giving it a try. Oh boy were we disappointed in the food/ service.

The cons: food in general was sitting there looking old and stale or even cold. Can’t really say if the seafood / lobster was even fresh. The oyster was previously schucked sitting in a metal tray as the guy was putting it out. As I grabbed a few of different kinds. It looked like it’s been in the fridge dried out and depleted. Not freshly opened. My other friend who started before me ate a few oysters before I grabbed my plate to the table. When I told him about the oyster. The damage was already done. He had stomach ache and diarrhea for the next few days. If you’re going to pay a premium price for a hyped up buffet. The least you can do is have someone schuck the “fresh” oyster. The lobster was not worth it. Not fresh and they only cooked/ grilled it one way only. Cheese lobster. My other friend is lactose intolerance. So we had to ask the waiter to get some grilled without cheese. I even requested garlic butter or some other sort of seasoning. To my surprise no avail. Seems like they didn’t understand me or was just too lazy for a simple request. When they finally understood and made boiled/grilled lobster. Looked like my niece could have done a better job. Would have have been better if we would have got whole boiled lobster. Not over cooked and rubbery lobster meat. The cooked scallops station was cold. They made few batches ahead so it just sits there getting cold. Worth a try but not for seconds The sushi looked like no one touched it. Not a good sign. Indian food station horrible. Lacking flavor just didn’t have any thing worth eating. I usually get a plate sampler trying it out. 👎 Asian station was semi decent not top tier gourmet food. Better street /restaurant food out there. The abalone porridge was good ate it with salted egg. I can go on for hours critiquing the food. Stop for now. The waiters/ waitresses cooks/server didn’t speak too much english. The only one that spoke and understood English was the hostess. The pro: the abalone porridge 🤤 Beef wellington was good, the muscles, variety of shrimps, prawns,clam and crab was edible. Nothing special just boiled and put on ice. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Cost: over price for some below mediocre food. The cost of 3 adults was $5,783,400 dong. Roughly $227.00 US dollar. Comes out to $76.00 a person. We didn’t order alcohol or wine. That’s just food,...

I’m currently writing this review as I sit at this table finishing my dessert. I would like to start by saying I made a reservation on Open-table for a party of 4 at 2:15pm unaware that it’d be closed at 2:30pm until 6pm for dinner service. They rebooked my reservation at 6pm. We then waited in our rooms. We showed up at 6pm at we’re quickly seated. As we walked by the dessert section were quickly impressed. It looked great. All wait staff and cooks greeted us with big smiles. The waitress pulled out our chairs and gave us a spin on what they have and offered us drinks and a cold towel. We then browsed the buffet and began to eat. In a short moment of time, I realized that the more expensive items had to be served by the cooks which is entirely fine and which we had no problem with. We pranced over to the scallop section and were told to wait about 15 minutes which isn’t a problem. When we came back to retrieve the scallops we ordered, there was a manager by the name of Linh Vu that didn’t look pleased that we were there to get scallops. Mind you we haven’t had a second go around yet. From what I remember, a buffet is typically all you can eat. So I ignored the situation and continued on. My cousin which has never had Iberico ham asked for a slice after trying mines earlier and fell in love with the taste. He came for his slice and the cook unknowingly gave him 2.5 slices and was yelled at by Linh Vu once again. That is very unprofessional. If there’s a limit, please put a sign up otherwise please don’t make eating here an uncomfortable situation. We paid to come eat, it’s not like we’re at a food bank asking for a donations. Between my King Suite and dinner buffet here, I’ve spent approximately $1000 USD just in this establishment, not including the 4 flights I paid from Ho Chi Minh City round trip for one day just to have the experience at JW Marriott. I checked in at 1pm and I’m checking out tomorrow to fly out of Hanoi. I came to this place solely due to Sonny’s review on YouTube. Never again. I wouldn’t recommend JW Cafe to anyone else. I honestly don’t even want to finish my dessert. And frankly, I’m fortunate to of Vietnamese descent born in US and can understand what Linh Vu was saying otherwise I wouldn’t have even known. Beware if you decide to spend $2000 USD like me to come here. I’ve attached a photo of her so you don’t have to get close to view...

We came here for a Weekend Seafood dinner after watching Sonny's Youtube review. Unfortunately the spread was not as much as the video seems to show (the video shows a Sunday Brunch). Food quality was average. Some of the seafood was not fresh (I had feedback to one of the restaurant manager who was apologetic). Others were also not the freshest.

When we made a reservations via email, below are the exact wordings from the sales manager. "Our JW Cafe' restaurant offers international seafood buffet menu that serve Vietnamese food, international dishes, fresh seafood, BBQ, specialties from well-known cuisines, such as China, Japan, Korean, and the Mediterranean. Actual dishes each buffet station vary daily and by meal. On Friday - Sunday dinner, our buffet has unlimited cheese Lobster, Foie Gras. Particularly, on Sunday Brunch, guests can enjoy wide range of live seafood station with unlimited consumption of Cheese lobsters, abalones and Crabs..."

Lobsters were made to order and served to your table. When we ordered a couple more, one of the restaurant manager came to try to talk to us to order less, by saying it is a "special item". Very unprofessional for a buffet, especially by JW Marriott. Of course we ignored, but they did not serve us when we ordered more. Please do not call yourselves a buffet if you are not prepared to serve the items.

Crabs, there were a few small flower crabs in the cold seafood section. Never seen them refilled.

Abalones, only in the congee.

After 9pm the staffs just cannot be bothered to clear the tables anymore. The group of guest 2 tables away from us, seeing their table not cleared, simply moved into a new clean table to continue eating. Very...