Hoàng Việt Restaurant — Restaurant in Ninh Bình Province

I don’t normally post reviews about restaurants, but I had to go out of my way to praise this restaurant. I bumped into it purely for location convenience reasons but I was delighted with the service received! For starters, the food is very well priced and quite tasty. As in most of Vietnam, you need the help of Google Translate as a traveller who tries to communicate in English, however I felt the waiter was really quick to grasp what I was trying to say besides his limited knowledge of the language. He also looked after me and all of my requests, packing my food to take away so I wasn’t late (including both chopsticks and a spoon, presumably as many western people can’t eat with chopsticks) and even gifting me a banana. Unlike many other places, they didn’t ask me for a review - but based on my experience, I had to come here to...

We had a look at all the restaurants in Ninh Binh and for some reason, this place appealed to us. We didn't have any data to check reviews but we gave our gut-instinct a try.

Firstly; 7000 beers at happy hour (that's roughly 40c eur!!) which lasts till midnight. Secondly, really, really good food. We tried the fried tofu, crispy burned rice and goats soup, and crispy deep fried pork with noodles. All really autentic, tasting fresh, lovely, aromatic, and wholesome.

Moreover, the lady who greeted us was absolutely lovely; she seemed like the owner or mom of most of the waiters, but she had a lovely smile and wasn't anywhere close to being pushy, something which most vietnamese so far have given us the impression to be.

Finally, big, clean and busy restaurant with lots of happy faces, being locals or holiday...

I don’t know how others can say this is the best Vietnamese food they ever had. The food was atrocious.

We ordered the crispy noodle dish. The noodle seemed like they were taken from instant ramen. It was not at all crispy. The beef in pho bo was chewy, tough, and had an off flavor to it. The grilled pork was not what we expected either. came in skewers. The meat had this strange texture that i can only describe as mushy. The seasoning was haphazard. It was a random assortment of salty, spicy, with no balance.

Adding on top of this, the wait time for food was LONG. The food took at LEAST 45 minutes to from ordering to serving. We also ordered coffee and drinks. These took also 15-20 minutes before they were served.

This was by far the worst meal we’ve had...