Beer=Bia

These are two reviews I posted on The New Hanoian two of beer halls near my house.

White House Bia Hoi

This place is pretty great. Not exceptional for Bia Hoi and the food is moderately priced to expensive. But the salads are very good. And this is one of the most congenial Bia Hoi places I've been to.

To start with, the place is, architecturally speaking, just so...white. It's not an architectural masterpiece, but it's of architectural interest with random Modernist white walls, big windows, and towers and portals worthy of Corbusier complete with grand staircases that go...up. It's just not what you'd expect.

The staff speaks no English and the menu makes no concessions. It's encyclopedic. Page after page of multiple entries for each animal source including the usual sidewalk suspects but things like multiple da dieu recipes, too. And much, much more. The staff is very friendly and tries to urge the most expensive thing on the menu. In fact they did bring the most expensive thing on the menu--stomach sized at around 300,000 VND but we rejected it. I still don't know what it was: big, brown, like a loaf of peasant rye or some disturbing animal product or by-product, cracked across the top, filled with who knows what. We didn't order it so we sent it back to their disappointment.

Our first successful ordering strategy was to wander from table to table with our waiter, toasting the table and pointing to what we wanted. It worked really well there (it doesn't always). I've eaten there several times now with western and Vietnamese friends and have never had a bad meal and always had good beer or vodka. And I've met a lot of interesting people from the universities nearby or the rua across the street, all thoroughly lubricated and friendly.

The green banana and papaya salad is, truly, excellent.

Cientos

The two previous reviews are accurate as far as they go. It's just that they're reviewing this place as though it were a Bia Hoi or a restaurant. And in my recent experience, people who criticize people in Cau Giay because they're too lazy to go out of their own neighborhood just don't want to leave Hoan Kiem. It's nice to stay in your neighborhood sometimes.

The food is OK. Not great, not bad. The beer is OK. Not great, and, I would argue, not bad. It's moderately expensive.

But imagine yourself in a parallel universe where somehow a 1920s Czechoslovakian spa with it's carry-Bozart Architecture manque is superimposed on a Munich Biergarten and injected into a Vietnamese karaoke hall with all the space they need.

What you get is a massive stage with glittering curtains and backdrop worthy of Star Wars (maybe just Star Trek), volume that can carry across the cosmos, moderately to quite talented singers in gender appropriate ao dais and lounge-lizard uniforms competing with pre-recorded music. All for the exclusive entertainment of the twenty patrons bellowing across their tables and competing with the pre-recorded music. With hectares of empty tables in between them for privacy.

It's really kind of fun. And you can have a very private conversation in between the very short sets. And it's a hell of a lot cheaper than Beaulieu or the Press Club, and, to be fair, on par with prices at a big Bia Hoi. WITH Doric Columns AND atmosphere worthy of Fellini.

Early on, when I was too exhausted to leave my neighborhood for dinner, four of us went there for dinner and menu pointed. We got French Fries, boiled potatoes, and a potato salad made with two parts mayonnaise to one part potatoes to one part cucumber. It was actually really good all mixed together, if a little starchy.