Anise Kitchen — Restaurant in Sa Pa Ward

I've eaten a few times at Anise Kitchen when visiting SaPa over the last 18 months, and these were impressive/positive experiences. Unfortunately, my recent visits were not reminiscent of my past ones. I visited Anise yesterday and tried to order a burger. After some confusion and dealing with two of the waiting staff, it was translated that there were no buns, only baguettes or bread. They must have had a busy day for hamburgers prior to my 6pm arrival (the place was empty)....disappointing, but these things happen. The next day, I returned (noon) and waited quite a while before someone attended my table, even though they weren't busy. The staff didn't seem very attentive and like lots of places, maybe too occupied with their mobile phones (or too cold??). Eventually, I ordered the "Western Breakfast"....the waiter looked rather confused when I wanted to keep the menu at my table, and awkwardly he stayed there for several minutes. Overall, the impression I get over my two visits is that the level of understanding needs improving (and possibly the dresscode....so they look like staff and not randoms off the street). When my order arrived, it was rather small, containing; 1x sausage, 3x small pieces of bacon, some scrambled eggs, and shredded lettuce & red cabbage (strange ingredients for a "western" breakfast), and a baguette cut in half. I had to remind the staff that they had forgotten the jam (more like chunky syrup used in making smoothies) and the sour cream. Also, the cube of butter was on the main plate, which was warmed, so the butter melted before it could be applied to the baguette. The bacon slices were so small you could call them garnish instead of being part of the main ingredient to the meal. On a positive note, the breakfast, although small, was tasty but costed 87,000VND (without any beverage). The place just doesn't seem to have that professional enthusiastic vibe anymore...in my opinion. The menu has lots of ingredients for various dishes covered over, which comes across as they are cutting costs by...

Egg cocoa was delicious. It's like having chocolate pudding. The interior was beautifully decorated, creating a nice ambience. Staff were inattentive. It takes forever to get their attention to order. They're constantly looking unsure when you order in other languages while pointing at the pictures in the menu. They're only sure when you order in Vietnamese. Either way, like all sapa restaurants, they love to serve you food you didn't order as your order. I ordered salmon steak. What came was sturgeon steak. My friend ordered onion soup. What came was chicken soup. We ordered beef, what came was buffalo. This is despite you using Google translate and pointing at the menu's images. Sapa is usually cold, like in perpetual winter, and yet, they managed to serve me rotten cauliflower with the sturgeon. Needless to say, I got food poisoning from it. Food is pricey, scam customers by bringing them similar items but not the exact items they ordered and rotten vegetables. Never...

The worst food I had in sapa. My friends and I ordered 1 beef burger, 1 tuna burger, salmon steak and french onion soup.

The beef patties were definitely frozen store bought and tasted exactly like farmland brand patties, the fries were not fries they were wedges and they didn't season it so it had no taste to them,

The tuna burger was just tuna mayo sandwich.

The salmon steak came as sturgeon steak and when we told them we ordered salmon they insisted we order sturgeon. We didn't want to argue so we just ate it. The Sturgeon was very fishy and the fish skin was super fishy and undercooked even a cat would be like nope. But the worst thing was they served rotten vegetables the cauliflower had definitely gone bad and gave my wife food poisoning.

The french onion soup was not even close to being french onion soup. I don't know where the chef learnt it from but it definitely was from a french chef it looked more like cream of vomit soup with...