By Miral Fahmy, August 19, 2009
HANOI (Reuters Life!) - Hotel menus can quickly go stale, so a luxury resort in Vietnam has come up with a unique solution: ask the guests what they want to eat, every day.
After consulting patrons, the main restaurant at the recently opened Princess D'Annam Resort on Ke Ga Bay on Vietnam's southern coast comes up with a new menu card every day based on that day's fresh produce.
The restaurant, headed by Chef La Thuan An, specializes in French and Vietnamese food, and each evening's menu includes choices from either cuisine.
One recent menu included pan fried prawns marinated with lemongrass and seafood risotto as the Eastern option and roasted lamb tenderloin as the Western option.
"There is no default menu," Jean-Philippe Beghin, general manager of the 57-villa resort, said in a statement.
"In the same way that performance artists feed off their audience, we've charged our chef and food and beverage manager with acquiring new information about that day's group of guests and using that information to develop that evening's menu."
Guests can also accompany An on his shopping trips to the local fishing village to choose their dinner.
"It happens all the time," said Thierry Mounon, food and beverage manager.
"When people are on holiday, they want their gastronomic experience to be much more than selecting items from a one-size-fits-all list. Many want an interactive dining experience."
The hotel is located some 150 km (93 miles) from Ho Chi Minh City.
Tourism is a small but growing part of the Vietnamese economy, although the global economic slowdown and H1N1 flu outbreak have eaten into the number of visitors traveling to the Southeast Asian country this year.
The country is targeting 4.5 million visitors this year, but state media have said it may only see just over 3 million.
