posted about 2 days ago by bartkus
about the venue: Pacific Beer Hall

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Sigh, I hate to be the guy who trashes a place based on one awful experience, especially a place that, ostensibly, I still kind of like (everything I wrote in my first review still stands), but then I figure people should know. Basically, I took some friends out to Pacific, everything was going great until one of my friends bit into a spring roll and almost broke his teeth. Lo and behold, a nut in the spring roll. Not a peanut, a nut that goes on the other end of a screw. I like to think I'm not one of those expats that loves picking fights with locals over minor issues, but I don't think its completely out of line to not pay a bill if there are motorbike parts in the food. So I called for the manager, made my point clear, and walked out. Hey, mistakes happen. It wasn't personal, I wouldn't have thought to mention that in a new review. But then the scene turned into something from a bad kung fu movie. As we're walking away scores of people run out of nowhere to argue with us. I point at the nut. They point at the check. I point at the nut. They point at the check. I raise my voice. They start getting physical. After getting jostled, pushed around a little and getting my hand smacked whenever I showed the nut, I managed to push my way through the crowd and leave. In a comedy, the head chef would have come out and I would have gone Lloyd Christmas on his heart, but as it was, it was just a pretty shitty experience.

posted about 2 weeks ago by bartkus
about the venue: Noi Bai International Airport

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Typically airports are bad because they're big and difficult to get around. Noi Bai manages to be pathetically small and still really bad. The Vietnam Airlines check-in would have used space more efficiently if it was designed by anarchists (there's always a huge scrum outside the first set of gates, and a huge no-mans land between the first set of gates and the pick-a-queue area in the front, this latter area being set up such that if you're standing behind the person who lost their e-ticket, allowed someone else to pack their bags and can't speak any language other than Basque, you'll be waiting until they finish before you can check in), and their actual check-in procedure would be faster if instead of a central database they had to ride on horseback to their HQ to check your name against their records. And as if being there wasn't painful enough, you have to endure the 30 km ride, where at every kilometer you're forced to wonder, "couldn't they have built that airport of this piece of paddy/wasteland instead of the one 30 km away?"

Want some positive? If you're a little insistent and know where you're going, you can get a fixed price on the cab. Still no word on whether you can have the cab drive itself into the VA check-in counter.

posted about 2 weeks ago by bartkus
about the venue: Pacific Beer Hall

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If Stalin's architects were to build a bia hoi, this would be the one. I'm pretty sure you could sober up after each of the gigantic mugs of bia with a lap around the first floor. It looks like someone was trying to build the biggest hotel in Hanoi in the 80s and ran out of cement before they could finish the fourth wall and roof.

As other people have mentioned, hearty, cheap food (although the yellow noodles are a little pre-fab), pictures to guide you through the menu, and beer big enough for you and the horse you rode in on.

The only flag I'll throw up is that though its a classy looking place, there actually isn't a fourth wall to the "building", so if its too cold to eat on the street, it isn't going to be much warmer here.