Van Xuan Restaurant

As an expat in Vietnam for over 7 years I am rarely surprised by poor service so often found in restaurants and hotels here that I have begun to accept and maybe even expect poor service at times. Recently I have had some particularly surprising service that I think is worth a mention.

I have always been surprised by the lack of affordable restaurants or cafes along My Khe beach, Van Xuan Restaurant seems to be the only restaurant that can be considered comfortable and affordable. It is a large restaurant with a near perfect location and they make use of being across the road from the beach by having an open air beer garden out front, so everyone can enjoy the view.
The menu is typical, mostly seafood, mostly Vietnamese and mostly well priced. The food is nothing to write home about but with cool sea breezes and relaxed atmosphere and decent draught beer it is not a concern. If you stick to good old fashioned Vietnamese staples, fried rice and spring rolls, the food should be good enough to satisfy as you enjoy the setting.

The restaurant is only open when the weather is good, generally from June to October, and from my experience the management changes from year to year, therefore, so does the menu, the staff, the prices and most noticeably the service.
Outback of the main restaurant is a wedding reception hall, an adjoining hall is currently under construction and I can say from experience that it is a good place to get married and doesn’t feel like a typical Vietnamese Wedding Restaurant.

What stands out for me about Van Xuan Restaurant are two things, the first being the Czech style draught beer, dark and light beers are available and they are tasty and well priced, 20,000VND will get you half a litre of cold (by Vietnamese standards) beer. The truth be told, sitting across from the beach drinking something a little different from a bottled Larue with a fried or two is just about the only reason I visit this place, I have tried to boycott this place, tried to stay away, but the beer and the beach bring me back time after time.

The second thing that stands out is the obvious lack of customer care. AS with most places here, you are greeted by lovely girls in Ao Dais(traditional Vietnamese dresses) and 3 waiters will try to take your order in what seems like an effort to provide great service, often there are more staff than customers, perhaps this is part of the problem, each waiter thinks the other waiter knows what he is doing or understands the customer so they don’t pay attention and don’t provide any service.

More often than not, when I order food, I receive something different to what I asked for, not due to lack of understanding, twice it has been explained that they didn’t have what I wanted so they chose something else for me, both times the substitute dish has been considerably more expensive than my original order.

Just as Vietnamese do, I have developed the habit of carefully checking my bill as mistakes are common, this I accept as accidental as 50% of mistakes on bills are in my favor and don’t seem be part of any scheme to get more out of customers who don’t check bills.

Van Xuan is different, be sure to check the price on the bill with the price in the menu (don’t believe claims of “it is an old menu”), count you drinks carefully, and check your change, they seem to have a habit of adding to the bill in writing after you pay so as to reduce how much change you receive, for example if your bill is 110,000 and you give them 200,000VND they will come back with 30,000 change and some extra beers or another dish tacked onto your bill that they “forgot about”.

Overall, I like Van Xuan, I like the beer, I like the setting and the staff are OK, not very well trained or conscientious but usually friendly. If you do visit this place, be alert, be clear what you want when ordering and be careful with the bill, don’t accept even small mistakes or they will continue to make small mistakes. If you only go there and drink beer like me, it is hard for them to get anything wrong and just as difficult to play with the bill.