• 2
• Nothing special...

Having eaten at Loving Hut in Saigon, I was looking forward to trying one of the branches in Hanoi. My first impression was that is was very small (I only have the branch in Saigon to compare it to, which is huge) and quite basic (again, the one in Saigon is very modern and quite elegant). Not really sure why it's written in the description here that it has 'modern decor', as I didn't find it particularly modern at all. As for the service, I thought it was quite poor, and I am usually not critical and quite relaxed when it comes to service. My parents and I arrived and no one greeted us or acknowledged us. Almost all the tables were taken, which I thought might be a good sign, and we showed ourselves to the only table available. The waitress wasn't particularly friendly and didn't speak English at all. The menu was quite extensive and we finally settled on Pho, "Office rice", sushi and 6 fresh spring rolls. The food didn't take too long to arrive and I would have to say it was average at best. The pho broth was really bland and there was far too much cilantro, which I found very overpowering (having said that, I absolutely hate cilantro and should have probably asked without) - no lime came with the soup either and because of the service, I couldn't really be bothered to ask for some. My dad's "office rice" looked okay, pretty standard...his came with white rice, unlike the ladies next to him who had theirs with brown rice (we then realised there are 3 different prices for the office rice, so this most likely had something to do with it and we were unaware). My mom liked her sushi and liked that the portion size was much bigger than the sushi at the Saigon branch. After waiting a significant amount of time for the spring rolls, we had to ask the waitress where they were - they'd obviously been forgotten. We ordered 3 instead as we were quite full by then and even then it took a while for them to arrive. When we paid the bill, we had been charged for 9 spring rolls, which was a little bit off! I left this particular Loving Hut feeling pretty underwhelmed with the food and service, it was quite disappointing in fact. It is definitely inexpensive, but not really worth seeking out, in my opinion.