Red Sky: High end steakhouse in Da Nang review

Steak is popular here just like it is anywhere in the world other than India. South East Asia generally speaking doesn't have access to local high-quality beef so these cuts of meat are imported from New Zealand, Australia, Japan, USA, and even Russia. Because of this, the prices are much higher for a meal here than they would be for almost anything else for sale here at restaurants.

However, despite the fact that it does cost dramatically more than it would to eat almost anything else locally, compared to the prices that would be charged for these things abroad such as in places like Europe and USA, it is actually cheaper to have it here.

I only went to this place because it was a 20 year wedding anniversary for some good friends and to decline would be quite rude.

Red Sky is located downtown in Da Nang and it is a busy part of town that I rarely ever travel to. There are quite a few high end restaurants over on this part of town but much like a great deal of the expat population, I don't often go over there because there isn't really much reason for me to do so.

Every higher-end steakhouse claims to have the "best in town" so don't get excited about that part.

The menu ranged from tomahawk steaks meant for multiple people to share at a high price all the way down to cheeseburgers. They basically have it all covered and there are options for just about anyone. There is also some semblance of seafood but it mostly focuses on salmon, as one would expect. I went for the surf and turf because I rarely eat food of this caliber and wanted to try both the prawns and the filet mignon.

I can't argue with the presentation because that is a work of art in my opinion, nor can I complain about how long it took the kitchen to make it. There was about a dozen of us in attendance so the fact that they were able to serve us "western style" in that all the food came out at the same time, must have taken a rather great level of coordination on the part of the kitchen.

If you live in the western world you probably consider coordinated plating to be standard service but over here in Vietnam, it is actually quite rare. The restaurants here work on a basis of "whatever is finished first send it out" rather than any sort of timed delivery. I have been in places where the appetizers would arrive after the main courses because that was the order that the server wrote the order down. Here at Red Sky they must employ a rather skilled kitchen manager because all the dishes arrived at the same time.

I like my steak rare or medium rare but whenever i order a medium rare steak in SE Asia, it always comes out cooked harder than I actually ordered it. I had prepared for this so I ordered my steak rare expecting it to be med-rare.

You be the judge:

I'm not much of a chef but to me that looks as if the chef was pretty spot on. I would have preferred that it be more red towards the outside but then again, we run the risk of the center being raw when this happens so I am happy that they did it the way that they did. This was a very high quality cut of meat and a knife was barely even necessary to consume it. I had a mere 2 glasses of wine with my meal, one white, one red. I have no idea what I am doing when it comes to ordering wine but a long time ago a sommelier told me that a good rule of thumb is to order the 2nd cheapest wine that they have on the menu because that is going to be the best value. That's exactly what I did and I guess it was good, I don't normally drink wine so I don't know for sure.

This is what my plate looked like at the end so I think we can safely say that I enjoyed it quite a lot.

I had no starter although I had considered the crab cakes and because I was comfortably full after just the main, I am glad that I didn't do that. One of the other people at the table did order them and they looked a bit uninspired so I am happy that I opted out.

At the end the staff all had us on separate bills so the fact that they pulled this off is something that impressed me as well. My final bill just by chance came to 1 million VND which is just over $40. Two glasses of wine, 2 king prawns, and a 300 gram high-quality filet mignon for $40 seems very reasonable to me. This is much more expensive than what I would normally eat. 1 million VND is several days worth of food in my world and I include breakfast through dinner when tallying this figure.

Would I go there again? Well maybe, but I am not a fancy person so I'll likely leave it up to someone else's special occasion before I try to do something like that.

Red Sky is a bit cheaper than some of the other international standard steakhouses here in Da Nang and it is not located near the beach where everything is overpriced. So if you do find yourself here searching for a nice steak dinner I think that this could be a good choice for you.