I HATE MONDAY DINING — Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City

"Nice concept, meh food"

Went in on a week day, not too crowded, got a table for 2 instantly. Took 2 dishes recommended by the staff, best sellers: "Squid game pasta"and "Mushroom naked sandwich"

"Squid game pasta" is a aglio olio spaghettini topped with a whole squid, marinated with a sweet and spicy gochujang-style sauce. It looks good, impressive, comes with a big pair of scissors to cut the big squid, there is definitly a wow factor. The problem is: the execution of the dish is poor. The dish came 5 mintutes after ordering. The squid was overcooked and the "aglio olio" was dry and bland pasta in a pool of pasta water and garlic slices. I suspect the squid must be precooked and reheated on order. The pasta needed to be infused with the aglio and tossed to coat them properly. 5 minutes was enough to assemble the plate, but not make it good. Also, the squid sauce overpowered the lackluster aglio olio. Nice idea, poor excecution.

"Mushroom naked sandwich" is a slice of soudough bread topped with some pesto (pistachio?), avocado, mushrooms and ricotta. Again, looks good, sounds good but the result is meh. The bread is thick and not toasted so it soakes up the humidity from the pesto and makes every bites very bready and dense. All ingredients lacked seasonning. Avocado, pesto and ricotta are all fatty/creamy ingredients, if there is no salt and some kind of acide, it all just feels heavy and empty. The mushrooms were a bit sweet and that is all that came through. All in all, it was disappointing.

Didn't bother ordering dessert after that. Service was standard, nothing bad nothing extra. The decor and design of the place is nice and original, the kind of place where people would go just because it looks good and take pictures.

Suitable for GenZ, young couples or groups of...

To be frank, I did expect a lot (both from the high rating and the ambience of the restaurant), but the dishes were quite disappoiting.

Tomahawk Steak: The steak was the most expensive on the menu, yet it's just tough pork (so tasteless that the sause came with it didn't help at all, sause felt very store-bought). Potatoes and tomatoes were boiled and put on the pan, nothing special (I prefer them baked). The oil was too much and soak wet the spinach, very greasy. The quinoa was excessive. Overall, I don't think it worth the price paid (for a piece of pork, this is outrangeous) and I felt fooled by the menu's picture.

Anchovy Lemon Pasta: I don't like the misleading name; even if there's no anchovy visibly, there's no taste of it as all. This was a pasta dish SOAKED with oil, I was shocked to see the huge amount of oil under the plate. If they let the oil emulsified with the starch water of the pasta, they will have the sauce, not oil. The thin spagetti was adequate, I wished it was a bit more chewy. Asparagus was nice. Though the dish's aroma was good, if it's not tasty, it's a poor dish.

Personally, I think the free water served was tap water. It took a while to feel it because the lemon in the water jar kinda concealed it.

The staff was a bit rushy, I'd like if the interaction with customers a bit paced.

This is probably bad luck, but I had poor dinning experience here (despite nice...

Love the atmosphere and the decorations. Food was a bit disappointing tho.

I ordered a mushroom toast, which is a nice portion. The taste, however, was too salty and the texture of mushrooms was plain, lacking in layer, providing a slice of lime can easily improve that. I would suggest different cooking for different mushrooms, cooked, pan fried, deep fried; some variations can make the dish more interesting.

Also the pile of mushrooms are not aesthetically appealing nor it's easy to eat without a mess. The bread was fine but the crust was too hard to cut, my entire table was shaking when I tried to cut the bread. It was a bit confusing whether I should eat with my hands or knife and fork; because neither was comfortable.

I understand that the portion is important to customers, but if the restaurant puts less mushrooms and focuses more on the balance of the dish (like the spread and the bread), it could've been a great dish.

Unfortunately I didn't have the chance to try their other dishes, so hopefully it's nice and I would still like to come back again with friends for a gathering, since the atmosphere was really nice.

Oh and please use the sugarcane straws; paper straws are disgusting to use and it rots when you're still trying to drink your...