Hoang Yen Vietnamese Cuisine — Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City

i went here for a family dinner of 10. we spent around 3,000,000 vnd (~ $130), which is pretty good for a fancy restaurant with good food.

service. i’m starting here because i don’t exactly like it. i made a reservation online through phone call a couple of hours before the dinner in english. the receptionist that answered it fumbled a little but said that they will reserve a table for us under my name but didn’t ask for a phone number. i came and there was no reservation under my name. luckily, they still took us in. our server was very pushy. she kept suggesting us ordering 2x a dish since we’re a family of 10. like “oh can we get a stir fried vermicelli” and she would be like “ok i’ll make it 2 orders because there are a lot of people.” like no, i would order a different dish to make up for the number of people because we obviously want to try more dishes. she does this for pretty much every dish we ordered, quite annoying.

food. we ordered quite a lot of dishes. some memorable ones were the stir fried clear vermicelli with fried soft shell crabs and fried clams (i think? it’s been so long since i dined here sorry). all the dishes were very nice though. i think the only one that my family didn’t like at all was the deep fried soft shell crabs with salted eggs sauce. i believe the crabs were not fresh.

atmosphere. it’s pretty fancy and also located on a nice street in the...

This is NOT the same Hoàng Yến of pre-covid. On the many trips to Việt Nam, I never failed to have a dinner at this favorite restaurant of mine in the Đồng Khởi neighborhood. January 2025 is my first return after the Covid. The restaurant’s interior was renovated, newer, more modern looking, more colorful. Unfortunately the food were watered down, plain, completely non-authentic Vietnamese cuisine.

The Cá Kho Tộ (fish stewed in clay pot) - the fish was barely seasoned, tasted more like steamed and not stewed. The sauce was thin and light. It should be thicker, with deeper seasoning with caramelized fish sauce. I have to defend this most popular authentic dish that every Vietnamese family loved. This is Not our Stewed Fish in Claypot. Want to know what a home cooking Stewed Fish in Claypot tastes like? Try this dish at the many good Vietnamese restaurants in LA, Houston TX or San Jose CA.

Tôm Rim Mặn (Shrimp slow cooked in caramelized fish sauce). Same let down with this dish. The shrimps were dried and not well marinated. The sauce was bland. The taste was…generic. I have the feeling that the current chef is not even Vietnamese.

And who needs the dried cooked rice in metal container! Just give us a bowl of hot steamy white rice. This is our minimal basic good food, just like a good loaf of bread in Westerner cuisine.

I sadly have to cross this restaurant out of my ‘Have to...

I got taken by a Google photo I saw of the fried rice and had to come here to try it. I think everyone has had a pineapple bowl/stuffed fried rice at some point... I've never had a lotus leaf wrapped/steamed fried rice. With that being said and based on the menu, this restaurant clearly caters to tourists/foreigners (non-Vietnamese).

I ordered 3 items but was charged for 4. I tried inquiring about it, but it wasn't clear until I scanned the receipt. I guess you pay 5K ($0.20) for a wet wipe (kahn lanh) you don't ask for, just receive (forget about water - which I never got)?

The presentation of the food is very nice. However, the taste of the lotus seafood fried rice (169K) was a bit dry and bland (I didn't think it was that good). There is soy sauce, and the sauce that came with the pork belly made it a little better. The pork belly (119K) tasted pretty good; the portion was a little small - again, V-prices are still low overall, even the higher prices for tourist-heavy places). I'm glad I ordered 2 food items, each were kind of small (perhaps standard size), then again I'm used to paying 8~14 for a meal in Korea, kind of want to get the 5 dollar meals here (I've seen several buffets for under $10/250K dong).

The 45K passion fruit soda (I don't know exactly what I chose, just chose the photo) was alright as long as it was well stirred.

Shared M/F bathroom that's...