Ut Ut Restaurant - Sai Gon — Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City

Quán Ut Ut is a 3 story American barbecue joint in a bit of a weird location. This review will include the food I ate, prices, wait times, and more. As I first sat down, I noticed that the plates were clean and menus were given to us quickly. The menus double as a place-mat which is cool. I took out a knife from the utensil holder and it wasn’t very clean so I took another one. It wasn’t a big deal. The staff was talking a lot which was fine but then this one dude who was acting pretty arrogant started singing really loudly and it got on my nerves. At one point he tied his shoes by putting his foot on one of the seats behind my dad which I found unprofessional. In general the staff was very nice, it was just him. On the tables there were three unique sauces that you can add to whatever food you are eating. I liked that. There was a wide selection of beer due to the fact that they have an in-house micro brewery owned by the company “Biacraft”. Biacraft has two brewery locations, one being Quán Ut Ut. This place offers delivery. It wasn’t as busy as it usually is. I ate here at around 6:50 PM. Good selection of beer-snacks here (including fun things like deep fried pickles and bacon ice cream). They offer bottomless soda as well. You get bang for your buck here. Compared to local prices, it’s not cheap but it’s worth the portions you get. They have 1 or 2 steaks here which is odd considering all of the other meats they had. Okay, now for the food. It was me, my mom, my dad, and my good friend eating. We ordered Loaded Cheese fries with pork, Bacon trio (sugarcane habanero, hopped beer, brown sugar). Buffalo wings with golden sauce instead of firecracker sauce. Bacon Bacon Burger. Cashew-smoked ribs. Sides of green bean and grilled okra. The cheese fries were absolutely delicious. There wasn’t any cheese oddly enough but the pulled pork was tangy and tender and the fries were like the birth child of Morgan Freeman and Gordon Ramsay himself - they were good. The fries were just crispy around the outside which made them so special. The pork was a bit dry but it wasn’t a problem. The highlight of the meal was the Bacon trio. The dish included sugarcane habanero bacon, hopped beer bacon, and brown sugar bacon. The sugarcane had a special sweetness to it and wasn’t spicy at all, the hopped beer bacon was WAY too spicy, and the brown sugar bacon wasn’t too sweet - it was perfect. The buffalo wings I ate were weird. I chose the golden sauce (sweet and tangy) instead of firecracker (spicy) because I didn’t feel like anything spicy. The chicken was cooked well and they arrived at the table hot but the sauce was pasty. As if it were powdered. My friend ordered the Bacon Bacon Burger. It was packed with bacon, a big patty, onions, mustard and ketchup, and other shredded vegetables. According to him, the patty was juicy and the bread was a good size - it wasn’t overwhelming like other burgers he’s had. Let me tell you about the Cashew-smoked ribs. According to the manager, the ribs are smoked for about 6 hours in the morning off location and brought back to the restaurant in the afternoon. When someone orders, they finish it on the grill and paint it with their signature barbecue sauce. Personally I would have preferred more sauce on the ribs. The meat fell off the bones and melted in your mouth. The fat added a creamy touch to the pork. Their sauce is very flavorful and a very good part of the ribs. All in all, it was a beautiful part of the meal. The okra and green bean sides were grilled and pretty standard. A generous amount of fried garlic was on top. In general they put a lot of oil in their food. It makes the food pretty rich and fills you up pretty fast. I would recommend this place to anyone and I am for sure coming back. Highly...

Let me begin by giving the reader an idea who I am so they will be better able to weigh my review. I am an older (wiser, more experienced) American, so I know American Style BBQ. In other words, I am not someone who might be easily impressed by American BBQ unless it's truly good. Many of the reviews I've read that claim the ribs are great...well, I suspect most of these reviewers are Asian or even from India or eastern Europe so they really have no idea about American BBQ. For example, even average quality American BBQ is much better than Korean BBQ so Koreans will be easily impressed with average American BBQ. Chinese, Indians, etc. same thing. So read these reviews with these points in mind.

First I will address the service and then the food. Overall, I'd say don't go to this place if you're a foreigner because the staff does not speak English (other than the hostess but you need servers who can speak English). They don't even understand "I would like my check/to pay my bill." Pathetic. Because there are no pictures on the menu you might want to ask the wait staff about the items. But they don't speak English. Also they don't care to help you as it's more of a buffet style service...very poor attention to customers.

The staff is poorly trained as well and is simply lost outside of being able to bring your meal. The place obviously caters to the local Viet community which is fine. It's good that Viet's can experience American style BBQ at a reasonable price. And I'm sure Viets get better service because there is no language barrier. So from this aspect, Quan Ut Ut scores higher.

Also, this is the first restaurant I have ever been to in Asia that kind of pushes you to the door after you have finished your meal in order to make room for more customers. It's strange considering they have 3 floors but they only wanted to open the first floor and this was the weekend Just bad management. My overall experience was not good and I probably won't return unless with a group esp if I'm with locals.

The fact that this place is owned by an American yet is so foreigner unfriendly is a disgrace. The man who owns this place needs to get his act together! Hey man, hire an American to manage this place!!

The food...the selection is large and diverse. But the ribs are only "okay" quality both in the way they are cooked and the quality of the pork. The ribs are tasty but rather dry and I can tell they were not smoked overnight. I think they cheated on how they were cooked. This is the first time I have ever added BBQ sauce to my ribs because they were dry and there wasn't much sauce cooked into the ribs. Also the quality was not so great. I bit into many cartilage parts and fat. Nasty.

If you want great service from English speaking staff and higher quality ribs but a smaller menu selection, I recommend Jake's. The ribs are pretty impressive. But Jake's is about twice the price as Quan Ut Ut. So for value I'd say Quan Ut Ut does a pretty good job. It's good for locals and especially families. But if you want a quality dining experience and you don't mind paying for higher quality, Jake's is the way to go. Don't even consider taking a date to Quan Ut Ut unless you know...

Having travelled through the deep south of the US, I know my BBQ but I wanted to give this place some lenience on the basis that it's the other side of the world and there's unlikely any other business in Saigon attempting anything close to true American BBQ.

Pros Ribs tasted ok and will appeal to those that like super tender, fall off the bone ribs. BBQ purists would say these are overcooked Sides and beers were good and more affordably priced compared to the protein Service was attentive Sauces were good

Cons The buffalo wings. Waste of time. Almost no sauce and fried wings. You're a BBQ restaurant, how about smoking them? Also remove the tips if your separating the drum and flat, lazy butchery. Price / lack of combo options. Basically European prices. Only one combo option with no ribs and set sides I didn't want. Had to build my own plate. The ribs had no sign of a smoke ring. The pork had a few and some minor pieces of bark but, unlike the ribs, it wasn't tender enough and diced into pieces as what I would class as chopped pork rather than pulled pork. "Grilled" corn. If I'm being picky, calling a side grilled corn when you've clearly boiled and buttered it and left one minor grill mark on one side of the corn is pretty misleading. It still tasted ok.

I paid £24/$30 for starter of buffalo wings, a half rack of ribs, chopped pork, 3 sides and 2 bottled local beers the size of 1 pint. Marginally less than what is pay back home for a better quality plate.

If you're American, maybe wait till you get back home to satiate...