Madam Thu 2 - Hue Restaurant — Restaurant in Hue City

This is a nice-looking place that was filled with tourists, probably because they have full sized chairs. The food was not great, but it was okay. The portions on a few of the dishes were quite small. The service was the main issue. There was ample staff, but they seemed highly disorganized. We had to work hard to get service multiple times. The manager often was the one to help us, maybe because we did not have a designated server, but she still messed things up, more than once. Don't get us wrong, they were nice, but not too great. On top of that, there were odd issues, like taking our silverware for the next table (strange), then never replacing it (incompetent). From the other reviews, maybe our experience was an anomaly, but we won't return, and we can't (in good conscience) recommend the place. Bear in mind, almost all of our reviews tend to be quite favorable, for whatever...

Now, if you are an Asia-grown Asian finding yourself wondering why this highly rated restaurant is merely a mediocre touristy trap, take a moment to reflect on yourself: Aren’t you ashamed that you took the words from a bunch of western peasants who can barely differentiate between lemongrass and scallion (this is a metaphor), less understand what good flavors mean? I do not doubt though that it’s the “best food I have ever had in my life”for a lot of its customers bases.

Anyways, I’m ashamed because I do kinda see it coming. Mediocre ingredients (some clearly frozen), mediocre seasoning (some clearly too bland), mediocre techniques (some veggies are stir fried with high heat but way too oily) funny prices. Seriously, for similar price level, you may as well head to the tallest building in town and dine there, which was,...

The food was absolutely amazing. So far the best we had in Vietnam. The staff tried to explain how to eat which food properly, which was nice. However, we found it inappropriate that the waiter was always standing over us watching us eat our food. After we paid, a young waitress, who was not serving us, came to us and started chatting with us, asking us perhaps too personal questions, leading a rather long monologue about where we should go and so on, which we initially took as a nice gesture, but the monologue she concluded by asking us to give a positive review on Google and write her name there. I understood that it was important for her, so I agreed, but she insisted if I could do it now and waited for me to do it. It all felt like she was only talking to us because of a positive Google rating, but she wasn't...