Family Restaurant — Restaurant in Ninh Bình Province

I heavily recommend against eating here. Although the prices are cheap for a touristy area, the food is not good.

It's surrounded by other tourist traps and the inside, although roomy it can be blistering hot. It's better if you sit outside (remember to wear bug spray if you plan to). The fans on the inside don't do much to cool you down.

The Food:

We ordered the goat, snails, duck, tofu in tomato sauce, yellow noodle beef, stir fry, and stir-fried vegetables.

The goat was reheated, and some pieces of the goat were still cold when served to us. Do not order the goat if you plan to visit this restaurant.

The snails tasted like dirt, which is not really the cook's fault, and more so the quality of the ingredients. We haven't tried mountain snails before, so this may be how they usually taste.

The duck was alright and one of the better items. However, it's pretty mediocre. If you plan to eat here, it's definitely one of the better items.

The tofu in tomato sauce is a good dish. It's not better than other places, but it's not worse either. It's a safe dish to order that'll definitely sate your hunger.

The yellow noodle beef stir fry was made with ramen noodles, which is highly unusual. I personally liked it, but it's definitely not a traditional Vietnamese dish.

Lastly, the stir-fried vegetables were underwhelming and underflavored. It may be a regional thing to cook with less seasoning/sauce; however, it was less seasoned than I was hoping for. The vegetables were not undercooked, so it's still a pretty decent dish.

The Drinks:

We ordered two draft beers (7k Đ), it's a cheap price and a pretty good beer. It's served cold, and it's about 8 fl. oz. The drinks are well-priced.

The takeaway (tl;dr)

The price is pretty reasonable, being about 190,000 to 200,000 Đ/person. It's definitely not a culinary experience, but if you need food and want to get full, it's the place for you. Order safer dishes as this is not really the place to be...

In Europe 🇪🇺, duck 🦆 is almost a luxury 💎. It's very expensive and not common at all. In Vietnam 🇻🇳, apparently, ducks are like rats 🐀 cause duck meat is quite cheap (at least for Europeans) and you can find it everywhere. Especially in Tam Cốc, Ninh Bình, where all the restaurants roast ducks in front of their doors. Tam Cốc is the Hạ Long Bay of the land and it's, of course, very touristy. And so are the restaurants nearby. Nevertheless, the quality of the food seems pretty good in all of them. So choosing a place to dine can be challenging. But again, travelling with people who already know the area is a plus and, this time, my brother in law took us to Family Restaurant (that's the name of the place 🤨) for roast duck 🦆. We also shared a few other items, including Som Tum (you know that if there's papaya salad on the menu, I have to order it) and Nộm hoa chuối, which is a banana 🍌 leaf salad! I know we were there for the duck, but I must say that this salad was the most exciting item for me as I had never heard of it before. 🤗 It was good, but I'd still choose Som Tum every day. Maybe not this one though, as it was just ok. So I guess I should also give another opportunity to the banana leaf salad if I find it again (but where?! 😓). The duck was very juicy, not too fat, not too hard to chew (which often is an issue with duck meat as ducks 🦆 fly, as opposed to chickens 🐔). 👍 The service was correct. The place was not cozy at all but I didn't expect cozy there. Note that it's good for big parties so if you're in the area with friends, there you can find a table pretty easily. Including a few drinks but no desserts, we paid VND150K per person. That is not cheap for Vietnam 🇻🇳 but we had duck and the area is almost exclusively for tourists... and it's still not much more than €5! 😅

Quality & taste: 8/10 Quantities: 10/10 Atmosphere: 5/10 Originality: 10/10 Ratio price / quality: 9/10 Service: 7/10 How I felt...

Tempted by the glowing reviews, I went there with my gf, full of hopes and dreams. We both ordered roasted duck, of course, since most people who reviewed it, claimed it was out of this world.

Well, we're either the unluckiest couple on the face of this planet, or you guys are delusional or have never tried a good duck. And by the way, I'm not Anthony Bourdain or Gordon Ramsay, not by a mile, and will be more than happy to enjoy and nice meal which doesn't have to be prepared by a 3-star Michelin restaurant.

Anyway, the duck we got mediocre at best. Meat was dry and quite hard, I feel the duck was undercooked because it didn't come off bone easily, plus there wasn't that much of it to begin with. Considering what amazing food we've had so far in Vietnam, this must be one of our biggest disappointments. I DON'T RECOMMEND IT.

Plus the service staff was not really attentive. They weren't treating us badly, they just weren't paying too much attention. And the atmosphere... Well, for me this place looks just like another cheap joint at one of the countless Western seaside tourist towns. Tacky and kitsch.

Again, I have no idea where all those glowing reviews come from, but this place definitely doesn't deserve the fame, at least...