Sapa Center Cafe - Lao Cai

This restaurant is part of the Sapa Centre Hotel. After we had no idea where to go for our meals, we stopped here on 2 occasions. The food was tasty on both occasions and also with relatively low prices. The highlights for me were: Beef Burger, Cinnamon Apple Tea and Pumpkin Soup. The steamboat was also good; Beware of portions, although menu says it is for 2 pax, but for us it was more for 4 pax (perhaps we are light eaters).

I'm loving the food and the ambiance is really great staff is so accommodating

I was tempted by the cake, it was uneatable. My children had pizza, pasta and sandwich, they loved it. Latte was okay

Service and decor very good, the restaurant manager(? in particular was on the ball, inquiring if everything was in order. Probably not the cheapest restaurant in Vietnam but Sa Pa is a tourist town and prices reflect that. The food was average, not very good, not very bad, somewhere in between. The spring rolls we ordered were OK, the sweet and sour pork was just our, and the steak that I had was tough with a pretty tasteless mushroom sauce. French fries were not very good. It did the job in that we filled our stomachs but we would probably not go out of our way for another visit.

If what you 're looking for is a superficial, unhygienic, overpriced and inauthentic place for food, then I 'd strongly recommend this place. Our 3 person dining experience was poor to say the least. Their manager gave us a condescending look because of our sports attire, which is common in the area due to trekking/weather. The manager also mingled with customers very selectively based on clothing stereotype. In fact, even if one were to be dressed to the nines, it wouldn 't come as a surprise that they would feel uncomfortable in the restaurant since there was no hint of air-conditioning. On to the cakes that we tried, which were the Opera and Tiramisu, they were so-so and poor. The 'tiramisu ' cake was simply whipped cream on top of sponge cake, aka cheap stuff- nothing like tiramisu, no hint. The Opera cake was also just sponge with cream, but at least had a decent chocolate crust as its saving grace. Overall cleanliness was questionable too, with the place having visible dust and dirt all over the place. To conclude, coupled with the poor experiences of other customers that complained about food authenticity and hygiene standards, I 'd have to pass even if they were to pay me to walk in there again. The manager is doing a stupendous job, keep up the good work :