TOUS les JOURS - Hai Bà Trưng — Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City

Mixed feeling about this place, which is why I’m only writing this review after a few visits across one week.

I’ll start with the positives, some of the stuff on offer is delicious (try the potato bacon pastry!), the staff are nice and friendly, and they offer a quite good variety of things for a bakery.

However, on the other hand, I can list the following negatives/critics

(1) Coffees they don’t know how to do an espresso, no matter how much I try and explain (in Vietnamese and with photos), they brew a very diluted more of a long lungo or Americano than espresso... (I don’t expect everywhere in Asia to brew perfect Italian standard espresso, but when a big name offers espresso on the menu they should make the effort or learn how to make it)

(2) Toilets! Again around Asia i do carry soap and toilet paper on me all the time.. however you do expect from certain places (with certain etiquette and prices) to have decent toilets... there was no soap on both men and women toilets over the course of a whole week. Even toilet paper run off after a couple of days, and despite the big number of staff wandering around the bakery, there seems to be no process for anyone to check on the toilets... I’m not even mentioning one day the toilet was flooded and they didn’t even realize...

(3) Food Although some of the pastries are pretty good, it’s unfortunately not the case for everything. From my experience it’s been a 50/50 hit or miss. We had an almond tart which made me and my wife sick with diarrhea. Another time I had an orange cake slice and it was simply not good, dry and old from days you could tell, and simply shouldn’t have been...

Just completed a renovation, service was better before, need more tills, too long waiting to be served. Queue for tills in way of main staff entrance. Too many staff just hanging around. They must stop saying 'welcome to Tous Les Jours' - this puts people off. All products on show, unhygienic - with people, especially children breathing & coughing & touching the products (this goes for all stores not just this one). A great shame as the products are good. Nothing has changed since my last review. The 'welcome, xin chao' is really, really bad - PLEASE stop saying it, why do you it...?? Still very poor & slow service at the tills, better change the tills to the drinks counter where there's more room. Why do you put everything in separate plastic bags? So bad for the environment. You put items in bags after everyone has been breathing over your products. PLEASE up you game. A month has gone by & still the same - nothing has changed, today it was very difficult to get into the shop due to the many motor bikes parked around the doors, the majority must be the staff's as the shop was not busy. Too much use of plastic, items bought are double-wrapped but prior to that still people breathing on all the products (defeats the object....??) A great shame as the products...

Tous les Jours is a chain so they have quite a few outlets which is great. The place looks nice as it has a buffet style layout. I ordered from the establishment a total of 2 times before I stopped going there.

The first time I ate there, I had 2 buns and an iced coffee. The buns tasted nice but had gone cold as they were left exposed to the air conditioning. The iced coffee was good and they served it to my table.

The second time I went there, I ordered take away as I was on the way to work and wanted a quick breakfast. The cashier at the counter didn’t have gloves on and was sticking her hand into the plastic to put the bun in. Later, when she was taking payment, she used the same hand to handle the cash and cash register. Absolutely horrifying. If I was ordering food from a street vendor, I would accept it. However, since this is an established chain that is charging a premium, basic hygiene is expected from the staff.

That was the last time I visited Tous Les Jours as if the staff were this unhygienic in front of the customers, I can’t imagine what goes on in the kitchen. Anyways, the buns are quite underwhelming as they’re left sitting out in the cold...