Champs de Tam Coc — Restaurant in Ninh Bình Province

The worst restaurant we’ve experienced in Ninh Binh (so far)! When we first checked the menu we were pleased with the diverse selection of dishes but were suspicious of the super low prices. We always welcome cheap eat outs on our travels but always question when they are a little too low 😬 Despite this we thought we’d give this place a go. My girlfriend and I were sat down and given menus fairly quickly. The restaurant itself is nicely decorated, however the family who own/run it seem to not care about good service or the cleanliness of their restaurant. The table next to us had rubbish all over it and under the table whilst the main lady who was serving us was sat at the end of said table, peeling her fruit and eating it. Quite comical.

Anyway, so we order our food and drink, I ordered the beef burger and gin and tonic, and my girlfriend ordered the sweet and sour tofu and a bottle of water. There was some confusion with this lady about what a gin and tonic was, even with me pointing to it in their menu. The lady called for (what I think was) her daughter to assist her on understanding what I was pointing at. The message was then received and understood! I could however see that there was no tonic waters in there big fridge they have in the restaurant and even said to my girlfriend, “I bet they run to the shop to go and buy some cans”. A few minutes had passed and as I predicted l, one of the kids walks through the restaurant with a case of tonics. Did make me chuckle, at least I knew they were going to get my drink correct though, right? Wrong. They made my drink, presented in a nice glass, but had 0 ice in, made with tonic that has just come from a shop that obviously didn’t store them in the fridge. Again, quite comical, why offer something in your menu if you don’t understand what it is or how to serve it. I didn’t fancy paying for a warm gin and tonic so I sent it back and I was not offered another drink.

20-25 minutes has now passed since we ordered and the lady serving us our table to ask what we had ordered for our food. All I could make out from what she was saying was that they have forgotten our order. By this point I was ready to walk out, they then found our order behind the bar and only then had they given it to the kitchen for them to make. It was getting late by this point and didn’t want to have to look for another restaurant, so we sat and waited for our food to arrive.

The food did finally arrive, my girlfriend’s “sweet and sour tofu” came first. It most definitely wasn’t a sweet and sour, it was just a plain tomato based sauce. She still enjoyed it and ate it so no real complaint there, apart from it not being what was advertised. My burger then arrived, fries looked anaemic, burger patty was questionable, bun was greasy but was somewhat edible. I was pretty hungry at this point so I just ate it.

All in all, pretty disappointing evening at this restaurant. There is so much potential here, but the staff/family/owners do not seem to care about their business or their customers. We experienced some of the worst service we’ve had since we started our travels around south east Asia, the main positive of this place though was the prices, very cheap. The only people I would recommend this place to is someone who doesn’t care about half decent service, someone who wants below average, cheap food and warm...

It takes real talent to make two very hungry people leave their food. We had a chicken burger and bún thịt nướng. The idea being, if they're not good with western food, at least they'll be good with Vietnamese. Let's go with noodles first, shall we? They... were there. So were some very tasty herbs and lettuce. And a very good sauce. But the pork meat, the very star of the dish, was thick, had a consistency of a shoe sole and was barely spiced. Now, to the burger. The bun was, to put it nicely, as crispy as if it had been left on a radiator for the last 2 days. Chicken meat was nice and juicy, but don't expect it to be a chicken fillet - it's a chop of it with fat and skin. Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, that's it. Absolutely no sauce, making the bun even more fun to chew. We left the meat and most of the burger. You do you, but don't say you weren't warned.

Bear was...

My bus dropped me off at 0430, which is way before check-in, unless you book for the night before. I looked around for a place to hang out for the early morning, and while walking the street, came upon this place. The lights were on, and when I asked if they were open, the woman had me sit down and served an egg coffee.

An Egg Coffee is đ45,000. They have tea, 7 coffee variations, fruit juices, and smoothies. Prices range from đ25,000 (black coffee) to đ60,000 (fresh apple juice).

If you need somewhere to chill for awhile, this is a good place. (The fancy coffees may make you look like an alcoholic since they're served in...