4U Restaurant: Budget food in a luxury beachfront setting in Da Nang

I'll preface this by saying that I think the name of this establishment is just terrible and that is what has taken me so long to ever even walk through the front doors of the place. As someone who is not a fan of the butchering of language, naming something that a teenager would use in an SMS as the name of your semi-luxury establishment is just an extremely bad idea. That being said, I suppose it is easy to remember and the silliness of the name basically Instagrams itself, which may have been the idea all along.

This place is located directly on the beach in Da Nang in one of the only areas where shops are allowed to be, thankfully. It should come as no surprise that because of this location and the high profile tourism nature of the area, that the actual quality of the food isn't that great and of course, most things are overpriced.

I did still enjoy my time there though because it does make you feel like you are somewhere special.

Being right on the sand like this is a bit of a luxury in Da Nang because since there is apparently some sort of city ordinance that doesn't allow for building on the seafront, there aren't many places that you can actually do this. Most of the establishments have more or less the same setup, with the very popular seats - which are almost always reserved - are very close to the water. During certain times of the year, the water actually crashes into the side of the building.

The menu did feature really expensive cuts of meat from all around the world, but seeing as how it was lunch and I tend to not trust the claims of authenticity when it comes to high-quality beef in Vietnam, I opted for a burger instead. My visiting friend, who is a pescatarian, ordered some sort of tuna steak.

The burger was nothing outstanding, but it wasn't bad either. I don't like it when people cut m burgers in half and don't know how that trend got started, but whatever. It tasted just fine, wasn't overcooked, and was served in a timely manner. This, combined with the gentle music and the sound of the waves crashing nearby made for a nice experience. You may notice there is a Budweiser in the background there as well, which is not something I would normally order but since my burger was called "American Beef Burger" I figured I'd go full 'Merican and just round out the entire order.

While I did not try any of it, my friend said that his tuna steak was basically about the same as how I felt about my burger: Perfectly adequate but nothing to write home about. He did not have a Budweiser :) Both of our dishes were under $8 and this is virtually unheard of this close to the ocean in Da Nang.

The variety of food on offer was a bit disappointing mainly because it lacked any sort of unique character. This may not necessarily be the fault of the ownership but rather just that almost all tourist restaurants have more or less the same menu. This is one thing that makes dining out in Da Nang a bit boring. It doesn't really seem to matter where you go to eat in the tourist parts of town because everyone has essentially the main menu with few exceptions.

What makes 4U a decent choice for anyone visiting here is the atmosphere. Of all the beachfront places I have been to, and there are only about a dozen in total in the entire city, this one had the least ripoff prices of them all. Some of the other businesses, that have similarly average food offerings charge around twice as much without having any noticeable increase in actual quality. The price of the beers is the main noticeable factor here: My Bud was 40K VND (around $1.70) and my friend's Tiger Beer was 25 (around $1.) Getting beers for this cheap right on the beach in a place with comfortable seating and a fantastic view of the beach is basically unheard of in this town.

Some other places I go to that have plastic chairs in the sand charge more than this, so even if you just want to have some drinks and completely ignore the food, this could be a good place to go to.

I don't often go to places like this because I can tell just by looking at the facade that it is a tourist trap and in many ways 4U is exactly that. However, if you are visiting this city and just want to have a nice place to sit and enjoy the thing that most people visit here for in the first place (the beach) then I think that 4U is one of the better choices that you could make while you are here.

I would post a link to the location but honestly, if you are here already you will be able to find it since there is only one single section of the beach that has anything directly on the sand.