By Thúy Hằng

Instead of visiting relatives and friends every day during Tết (Lunar New Year festival) as is custom this time of year, I mostly stayed at home. The weather was unpleasant -- it was the coldest Tết holiday in recent years, with the temperature dropping under 10 degrees -- and it rained. Added to this the Omicron variant is and was spreading, and people seemed hesitant to welcome visitors to their homes. And, of course, I didn’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable by bringing them unexpected worry.

Pan-seared sea bass with teriyaki sauce and baby vegetables. — VNS Photos Thúy Hằng

On the fifth day of the holiday, I had been reduced to nothing but eating, sleeping, and watching Netflix. With the boredom of home setting in, I and two friends decided to gather for a new year's meeting. As all the restaurants were closed, we chose Movenpick Hotel in downtown Hà Nội as our rendezvous. We needed a cosy place to keep us warm from the miserable weather and a place not too packed with people. Movenpick proved ideal to satisfy our needs.

The hotel’s Mangosteen Restaurant offered a Tết menu featuring several special dishes for the occasion, but we all had eaten a lot of food during the holidays and were longing for something light and different from the traditional food at home. The Business Set Lunch offering a two- and three-course combo seemed suitable for us.

Fresh wakame and prawn salad.

The set lunch offers different combos featuring dishes, be it appetiser, soup, main course, or dessert. Each section has three options.

Tempting food, nice presentation, five-star service, and reasonable price are what I and my friends aim for whenever we have the chance. We had such a meal at the hotel for our secondary school reunion where we also enjoyed the set lunch.

A fan of seafood, for my first two visits I was “faithful” to Combo 3 featuring two courses – one main course and one appetiser or soup (VNĐ270,000). I had ‘fresh wakame and prawn salad’ and ‘pan-seared sea bass with teriyaki sauce and baby vegetables.’

Hải Phòng red noodle in sweet and sour seafood broth.

The salad was fresh. The seaweed wakame is among the ingredients, which also includes avocado, cherry tomato, green beans, black olives, iceberg salad, radicchio, and red radish. The sole prawn in the salad was also very fresh with a slightly crunchy texture and natural sweetness. The salad is so good that whenever I have the last bite in the bowl, I always wish, some way, that it could refill itself to extend my pleasure.

The main course sea bass dish was flavoursome. The white fish was moist, buttery, and tender with firm flakes. There is a dipping bowl of teriyaki sauce served on the side, but for me, it was unnecessary as the fish was seasoned perfectly.

For the recent New Year lunch, I picked Combo 1 featuring two dishes from the appetiser, soup and dessert (VNĐ180,000). This time I plumped for ‘crispy soft-shell spring rolls’ and ‘Hải Phòng red noodle in sweet and sour seafood broth, served with prawns, fish cakes, mantis shrimps, and celery.’

'Fresh wakame and prawn salad and 'Sea cucumber and shiitake mushroom soup’

The ‘crab spring rolls were crisp, and the dipping fish sauce was perfect as it features all four tastes of sourness, spiciness, saltiness and sweetness. However, it was hard to feel the existence of the crispy soft-shell crab as it was dominated by the other ingredient of the roll: herbs and vegetables. Nevertheless, the rolls were more than palatable and I enjoyed them with satisfaction.

During Tết, when I felt tired of high-calorie food like bánh chưng (square sticky rice cake) or thịt đông (meat jelly), I longed for a bowl of hot noodle soup – my favourite treat. And the ‘Hải Phòng red noodle’ satisfied my yearning. Like magic, its sweet and sour broth awakened all my taste buds. The noodles were smooth, the seafood succulent, and the crunchy celery an additional pleasure. I was surprised that noodles – a popular street food – could retain their authentic taste and flavour in a luxury hotel, but they surely did. It was as if I was eating them in Hải Phòng.

My friend chose Combo 3 with ‘sea cucumber and shiitake mushroom soup’ and ‘oven-baked crepe with chicken and Emmental cheese’ and was pleased with her choice although she said “the portion is too big” for someone on a diet, as she often is.

‘Coffee crème brulee served alongside a fruit skewer’  (left) and ‘Passion fruit panna cotta’.

Although we didn’t have dessert this time, I should mention that it is very good here. In past visits, my friends and I tried the ‘coffee crème brulee served alongside a fruit skewer’ and the ‘passion fruit panna cotta.’

Other options in the set lunch include ‘garden salad with passion fruit dressing’ (appetiser), ‘creamy purple yam soup served with black sesame grissini’ (soup),’ vegetarian tortilla severed with French fries,’ (main) and ‘fruit yoghurt’ (dessert). — VNS

MANGOSTEEN RESTAURANT

Address: Movenpick Hotel Hanoi, 83A Lý Thường Kiệt St, Hoàn Kiếm Dist, Hà Nội

Price: Business Lunch Set features five combos ranging from VNĐ180,000 to VNĐ350,000.

Comment: Delicious food at a reasonable price in a five-star hotel. The Business Set Lunch is available until the end of March.