Entree Kibbles: Faifoo Central Restaurant @ Hoi An in Vietnam

As I scrolled through Google Maps, my eyes almost popped out when I chanced upon an eatery with an almost perfect rating of 4.9 from more than 600 reviewers; Faifoo Central Restaurant! How did I even miss it in the first place?!

Anyway, we decided to have dinner at the restaurant before taking the cruise to Hoi An Memories Land. Just keep in mind the picture above as the signage for the dining establishment wasn't very pronounced.

You can choose to sit outdoor where you would bask in the sun while watching boats cruising up and down Thu Bon River, or you can consider the air-conditioned indoor. As a true blue Singapore, no prize for guessing which one we opted for eventually.

Such a sophisticated table setting. By the way, Google Maps are generally used by foreigners so one of the things I noticed was that there didn't seem to have many locals, and maybe because of the timing, it there were plenty of empty tables.

Nevertheless, I am famished, so let's quickly order! I actually wanted the sampling set that was mentioned by a few reviewers but it was already discontinued; hence, we decided to take on some of the recommendations by the friendly waitress.

Tra Da - traditional Vietnamese tea without sugar. Too bitter for my liking but the key attraction was the vase behind, which had a bundle of real flowers!

White Rose Dumplings - after trying my first white rose dumpling at Morning Glory Original, I knew it would be hard for me to resist ordering this when I saw it on the menu!

Texture of the dumpling skin was tough and honestly not as good as the ones from Morning Glory Original. Lifesaver was the sheer amount of fried onions, that have the ability of miraculously enhance the flavor of any food.

Crab Meat and Asparagus Soup - while it didn't look appetising, the taste was alright even though it was more like plain egg soup with crab meat and vegetables.

Seafood Pancake - when this was placed on my table, I mistakenly thought this was banh xeo and I had to check back to ensure this was actually what I ordered.

You even have rice paper to go with the seafood pancake!

According to the menu, it was literally banh xeo but with more seafood ingredients like squid and shrimps. After wrapping the pancake with the rice paper and dipping it into the sauce, I took a bite and it was delicious, especially the sauce which was peanut based with pineapple, like the satay gravy! p.s. pancake was oily.

Crispy Duck with Local King Pepper - even though I am super selective when it comes to duck, this came strongly recommended and I was all prepared to be stunned with the duck that shall swim down my throat.

I was stunned alright; by how terribly lousy it was. Meat was chewy and I wonder where the word crispy comes in as there wasn't a single tinge of crispness. The star was actually the fried bun, which would go very well, even perfectly, with our chilli crab gravy! Even the bok choy vegetables, sprinkled with fried garlic, were better than the duck meat.

To be fair, this was an accompanying sauce of sauce and I must at least attempt to eat a slice of duck meat that was dipped into it. I did and it was like a salty, oily sauce that I will declare as an ultimate punch signifying the absolute failure of the duck meat.

Pork Ribs with Special Sauce - sauce was said to be the chef's special sauce and since it was more a western dish, I thought it would be a nice departure from the Vietnamese cuisine we had for the past few days.

Taste wise, much better than the not-crispy duck but as a rib served in Western style, this was more like eating char siew on a rib, and it's at most an average tasting char siew. More credit was given to the claypot rice; lightly aromatic and fluffy!

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If you ask me, the mains were a letdown and when I was asked how was the food; I decided to be frank. The manager appeared to be sincerely apologetic about the bad review from us, and insisted on waiving charges for the two mains and giving an extra 10% discount. This put me on a spot as I told her this wouldn't stop me from being honest in my blog review for the restaurant.