Service In Hoi An

In general, the people in Hoi An are sweet and nice, but service is a big problem here judging by what I’ve seen after one week. I don’t expect everything to be perfect like in high class or five-star places, but in the average tourist restaurant the service is not great.

I was so surprised to see staff in a very nice café serving with bare feet and staff arguing each other or talking loudly around the customers. The tone the waiters use to talk to customers is a bit strange, too. Even in my hotel, I went down stairs to reception to ask a question, but the receptionist kept talking to her friend on the speaker phone instead of holding the phone. I don’t think this kind of service is acceptable at all. I don’t think that I am difficult but when you work in hospitality for a long time, it’s difficult not to judge the service wherever you go.
However, eating on the street is different; the local street vendors are just so easy going and sometimes they even speak slowly to tourists because they know we might be confused. I imagined the service in Hoi An would be better than in Hanoi because of the number of tourists but it seems just about the same or even not as good in some cases.

I’ve noted some places that I’ve been to where my experience was not so good. Maybe they were having a bad day but these places were not up to standard in terms of food and service.

1. Café Dan
2. Dang Thang restaurant
3. Hai Scout café

On a different note, laptop computers are not worth taking to Hoi An if you wish to use a wireless connection, because there’s only two places but the connection signal is really weak. Unfortunately, the staff at these places didn’t tell me about the bad connection until after I’d already ordered. They tried to tell me that the connection depended on the value of the laptop? I didn’t know why the waiter told me that, but it ended up being a waste of time.

Beside these bad places, there are some good names which provide good services, good food, clean and friendly atmosphere that I would highly recommend such as:

1. Nam Long Restaurant
2. Vinh Hung 2 Hotel
3. Tam Tam café
4. BaLe Well Restaurant
5. Ngan Ha Cloth shop at 80 Nguyen Duy Hieu Street.
6. Sakura Restaurant
7. Xua va Nay - Before and Now Bar and Restaurant.

Hope this post can help you avoid bad places and enjoy yourself at nice and good places.