Hoi An Restaurants

Laugh Cafe is run by an Australian NGO to train young people to work in the hotel / resort/ restaurant industry.
It serves great food, it has icy cold drinks and beer and free wifi. It is run mostly by the trainees who do a great job and are friendly and helpful and they actually smile at you.
there are apparently two Laughs but they are the same organisation. Both of them are in Tan cao Van street, one at 40 and the other at 126. I went to 126 and it is excellent, well worth finding.
The man who runs it, Peter, is very helpful and will provide answers on lots of things.
We did the chicken lemongrass at a cooking class at Laugh (along with fish in banana leaf and papaya salad and fried wontons). The class was great fun, and we got to choose what we cooked.

Favorite Dish: The chicken with lemongrass was a standout dish. It is hard to select a favourite as there is a huge selection and it was not possible to try everything. BUT, every dish we ordered was great. We tried the local dishes, Papaya salad, white rose, Cao Lau, fried wontons, and maybe 4 others. What can you say when everything that arrives is GOOD!

The food was excellent and was also affordable. The surroundings are equally as impressive, will become a regular place to stop for a drink and a meal when i return to Hoi An. Had a chance to catch up with the manger whom is professional and speaks english which was a great help. Free pol was an added bonus.

Favorite Dish: Great food Great Service

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This small restaurant is located just across the street from the Thu Bon River...provided some great views of the local people coming and going...also the steady stream of tourists visiting the Old Quarter of Hoi An while eating some reliably good food.if you're lucky when you arrive you can have a street side table...We were able to watch business transactions between tourist and vendor...boat rides being sold..and activity on the river..It was quite an entertaining place to hang out at.

It serves up local cuisine and the odd Western staple...The service was fine...its not Five Star dining...but the restaurant is clean and the food was good...

We discovered it the first day we arrived here...and inevitably because of the good food,we visited daily while we were here..and more often than not....we had a table at street side...More than once while sitting there...we brought them some business when people would approach to check out the menu just outside the front of the restaurant...we'd encourage them to come in...assuring them that the food was good...We never did get our kick back though..as we thought we should have been entitled to..

Favorite Dish: I had a small variety of foods from the Banana...they make a GREAT sandwich served up on a small baguette...vegetables fresh and crisp...served with cucumber and lettuce....my only requirement...HOLD THE MAYO please...No sauces like this for me please.

The vegetable noodle soup was chocked full of fresh veggies...and served piping hot.The crab and asparagus soup was also a favorite...

Crispy Fried won-ton served hot and delicious...filled with crab and a tomato sauce and seasoned well especially with cilantro...

Most everything that we ordered of the menu was delicious...plain and simple....Pricing was more than fair...nothing except the fresh squeezed orange juice would be considered expensive..

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2 branches of a great cafe/restaurant/bar on 2 levels serving excellent Vietnamese/western food. Breakfast, lunch and dinner available for good prices. Clean place and friendly staff. Great spicy chicken curry and papaya salad. Balcony upstairs/partly open at front downstairs. Pool table.

Favorite Dish: Spicy chicken curry, papaya salad.

Hoi An, food-wise, proved to be a very sad place... plenty of restaurants all over, of very poor quality. One notable exception is the Good morning Vietnam, although it mainly serves Italian food. The people are friendly and the owner, Massimo, helpful. Just don't talk politics with him, he's quite angry with the entire world.

Favorite Dish: Special of the day, when we went, was a swordfish carpaccio, meaning raw sword-fish slices... delicious, but not for those who can't eat garlic, as they surely abounded. I loved it. My husband had some more conventional pasta with shrimps.. he quite liked the added spoonful of caviar on top.

A good meal... only slightly pricier than other restaurant in town, but ten thousands times better

The breakfast is more continental than in other hotels and was, I must admit (how embarrassing!), the best I’ve eaten in Vietnam. The service was very polite like in every hotel we’ve been in Vietnam.

Favorite Dish: Good juice, good food, choose from a small but good buffet with things we haven't get in other restaurants.

Laugh Cafe is not in a main tourist street, but is well worth finding. Set up to help young Vietnamese get a start in the hospitality industry it serves great Vietnamese food.
It has a huge variety of dishes - I counted to 100 and stopped;
the servings are generous, unlike many Vietnamese restaurants
the service comes with a smile, and genuine interest. The young trainees who work here are keen to improve their English.
Laugh Cafe takes young people who want to get a start in the restaurant/ hospitality sector and teaches them English, how to run a restaurant, cooking skills, hygiene and safety and then lets them do it.
The organisation that supports the restaurant and provides the training is MAD Indochina, an Australian NGO (Charity)

Favorite Dish: Cau Lau is the traditional noodle dish of Hoi An and it is great.
Laugh Cafe offers the traditional variety and a vegetarian version. It also seems to offer traditional and vegetarian versions of other local dishes. I have not tried them all, but those i have eaten are all outstandingly delicious.

The Goda Restaurant is located in a remodeled villa --good food, very pleasant ambiance.

Favorite Dish: I don't remember the name of the dish, but they wrapped sliced pork in guava leaves, and inserted 3 of these little packages into a split chopstick. We also had mango salad with beef.