SEN Vegan Restaurant — Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City

Please dont go here and please read this to the end.

We arrived at the end of the night, well one hour from closing. The lethargic staff handed us menus, which had extensive options with English translations. Very handy.

After much deliberation over dishes we used the appropriate sequence of facial expressions to summon someone. This person informed us that there was in fact only one option (why give us a menu at all) left. Plain noodle, fried tofu and a spring roll. 'Eh'? I tried to convey my confusion using google translate. Yes, only one dish left. OK, we're hungry, let's just do it.

What arrived was a bowl of dry noodles (no broth, no sauce) with some stuff on top. There was no condiments on the table and had to ask for soy sauce. Some dipping sauce for the spring roll appeared but everything was so dry we had to put that on the noodles just for some sort of flavour.

Before we could take a bite a small cockroach ran over my wife's chopsticks and I flicked it away from the table. We carried on with good humour. 'Ha, its just one of those things that happens' Thinks I.

The kitchen was down the hall behind me but in full view of my wife who watched them start to fumigate with a colony size can of something deadly. Consequently a rampage of cockroaches came out into the hall behind me, where another member of staff was stamping them. This game of whack-a-mole went on for nearly the entire time I was eating and my wife was impressed at the size of the things. She's lived abroad in hot places and isn't squeamish, so I trust her when she says they were substantial. Every now and again she would gag laugh in disbelief as one would come from an unexpected angle like falling from the ceiling. I'm experiencing this via her narration at this point and in my mind it's like an Aliens movie. The stamp of flip flop on metal, the crack of compromised exoskeleton and carapace, the stiffled squeal of young staff member/executioner.

It cost 120,000 ish dong and was a full trauma. Don't go. The staff don't care. And you...

What started our very promising ended on a sour note that spoiled the entire experience.

When we entered the restaurant we were warmly greeted by the whole team and directed to the seating area. The menu is large and interesting, teasing with options. On the whole the food is great, with a few misses, but they're not what would deter me from ordering more. The atmosphere is a bit lacking - it's just four walls, tables, seats and fans. There was lovely music playing but it was really hot and there was zero ambience.

The service is what lets this place down the most. It started flawlessly, but then it started going downhill. First, we were given the wrong kind of rice and there was absolutely no way that it was miscommunicated from our end - there was pointing to the item on the menu multiple times, nods and confirmations.

Then, we were given the wrong bill. We were sitting next to a large table of friends who joined halfway through our meal so I'm guessing the confusion arose from there, but regardless, after the rice mixup we weren't too impressed when the waiters tried to argue when we pointed out the wrong bill.

Finally, when we left the building, two members of the team took hostage of our scooter. We left it with an attendant when we arrived, but he was no longer there when we came back out and these guys jumped on the opportunity. They demanded a payment of 8k, which is unheard of when parking with an establishment. We tried to argue on principle but they were having none of it, so to just be able to go home I handed over a 10k note. All of a sudden this guy lost all of his ability to speak English or do basic maths and it became impossible to get our change back. So we ended up paying the most expensive parking in all of Vietnam.

10k isn't much for us at all, but this is not the right way of going about earning more money. I was looking forward to trying more of the menu, but needless to say, we won't be...

This was a bit of a disappointment, on the menu the dishes seemed reasonably priced, but when you your 🥘, you realise the portions are tiny and suddenly the dishes becomes expensive.

The beer is also expensive, they charge you 30K VND for a non-alcoholic 🍺, it’s an imported beer which might explain the price, but nowhere in the many does it say that it’s non-alcoholic.

The vegan goat meat tasted good, and so did the fried vegan 🦀. We also had a spring roll each as an appetiser but we left the establishment still a bit hungry.

Staff is also very non-attentive, at least on the top floor, where they sit in a closed of room and it’s very hard to get their attention.

The thing it has going for itself is the large menu, but be aware that you will spend quite a lot more money here, for way smaller portion, if you want to get full, compared to other...