| rev:text
| - Let's be brutally honest : without the chef, this place is doomed. It's not hard to see why. This place has gone down in quality over the years.
Somehow, over the last year,the space has gotten dirtier, (you can tell by the tanks used to house all the crabs for their signature curry crab), the space has gotten more cramped, and the prices just got steeper.
I think it's general consensus that the service has miles of room for improvement. I won't go so far as to say it's atrocious and comparable to a Soviet era prison, but it begs the question : how hard does the chef have to work to keep these people in business?
That question is easily answered : and the answer is, it varies. Some people absolutely adore the hard work the chef has put into it. The love it so much they can ignore the fact that they are hardly sitting comfortably. I almost managed because that's how amazing the rack of lamb is. The comfort level isn't just isolated to seating, even standing or walking is difficult. The store hasn't gotten changed much since its inception back in the early 90's, but they've managed to find an excuse to squeeze in a lot of gigantic tables, making it more and more cramped and more and more difficult even for their own staff members to walk around. How have they not violated a safety hazard for that? That's a recipe for trampling!
On the note of rack of lamb, here's an interesting story. There were 3 people at dinner today including myself, and seeing that there's 3 of us, and the rack of lamb comes in a set of 5, the server asked if we'd like 6 pieces instead of 5, so each person can have 2. We answered yes. While it was delicious and just mindblowingly good, I can't help but realize, we had to pay $29 for that. That's almost $30, meaning it was about $5 for just one piece. That price was not that steep last year, but I understand, times have changed, but I guess that's one thing I'll think twice about before ordering. $30. You could get a decent meal for that price for my party of 3 at most places.
So, at this point, you might be thinking : "This is the n-th review about this restaurant from another snarky Yelp-er who's clearly upset about the ambiance and service. Maybe it's better to just not put ourselves to this. It's not worth the steep prices if you'll be treated terribly in a terrible environment". Well, don't hold off just yet. I'll do the most cliche thing and suggest that you try the food. Why is it cliche? Simple..all the other reviews written about Saigon Star have said virtually the same thing : the food is pretty decent. Is decent worth approximately 20-30 percent more? That's entirely up to you. My suggestion is, it's worth a try at least once. The food does get here pretty quickly, and it just goes to show how well the kitchen works. That kitchen, houses the most underrated team in the city, and it's great they're still pushing out amazing food at a great pace. That gigantic banner inside the front door that advertises it's crab? That part is still true. Of course, if you can just ignore the dirty crab tank near the door, it'll taste even better.
So yes, the management and staffers are ruining the restaurant, but that's what makes this business so interesting. People will always come back for great food, in spite of the price and service. That might be a key indicator of whether or not you should return.
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