I'm Asian...totally grew up with pho as a staple in the house...so....I know my pho!
ALL Asians on Yelp say that...but BELIEVE US! It's completely relevant and comparable to having an expert in PHO-logy giving you an expert opinion!!!
With that being said...
I was pretty excited this morning when all of the family agreed to have pho today...but so disappointed that I wish we had just gone with the latter and went to a buffet instead...
So here is how this Pho-day went:
11:36am Arrive at Pho Saigon 8
Homeless looking man sitting just inside the restaurant door opens the door for us...weird...but ok.
We are seated immediately...good.
*Restaurant decor...meh.
*Restaurant size...kinda small.
*Restaurant seating...elbow to elbow.
*Restaurant ambience...bland...just like the soup.
We scanned the menu and hubs notices a taped piece of paper in the menu that says "Consuming raw meat may cause illness" or something along those lines...I see their reasoning for putting that I the menu...but that is hella hella discouraging and bothersome!
This female server (probably in her mid-late 20s) was the rudest B!7H ever...idk if she knew how to speak English or she was just having a bad F¥King day...but REALLY?! If you don't like your job go work in some other industry! This is customer service slap your smile on and sell the damn restaurant!!!
She took our order for food...she seemed to speak decent English so I'm not gonna blame anything on that...but when my daughter, her friend and I have to say "The number 3" a dozen effing times and you still don't effing understand that it is NOT a #30 and THEN get a funky@$$ attitude about it after I held my fingers up so YOUUUU can understand. You better be glad my ghetto@$$ didn't come out for real! On top of that she NEVER asked if we wanted to order any drinks...my husband had to yell at her from across the restaurant as she scurried away to do idk what!
All of that threw me off so bad I kept saying under my breath, "I don't want to be here I want to leave...I don't trust the food that is going to come out after all that." But hubs wanted to just eat and run because football was on. So we stayed...ugh.
Our food came out at a decent time...no need to wait. My daughter's friend ordered just the vegetarian spring rolls for herself she was still hungry after finishing that and asked to order the "Vegetarian Pho"
CLEARLY labeled..."VEGETARIAN" on the menu but the second server that waited on us (who was much more pleasant) stated that they use chicken for their vegetarian pho broth... CHICKEN BROTH.,.in their VEGETARIAN pho!!! That completely defeats the purpose of vegetarian dummies!...keep away non meat-eaters keep away!
Finally...my own food...so so so disappointed that even my PHOto was sad....the large bowl here is more like a small bowl at any other pho restaurant in town...maybe even smaller! Their satay is red chili paste...not true Satay at all. They use purple onions in their pho....kinda gross to me because it gives the broth a flowery sweeter kind of flavor...i like red onions but I feel pho has absolutely no place for them. I had no fish sauce, or salt in the immediate area to fix the broth...and trying to fix something that should be so simple to make in the kitchen bothers me bad!
I'm going to stick to my own home cooked pho or if I'm lazy go to Pho Kinh Do for now.... This place was such a huge disappointment!
I just read in one of the tips on yelp that they have a C grade?! Wtf?!? I wish I wish I wish I would have seen it for myself otherwise this review would have never happened!
1 STAR for making the 1st server go away and letting the second server tend to us....(She and the fact that Yelp doesn't allow me to give negative Stars are the reason why you got 1 star from me.)
Btw...we ran into that same homeless man again an hour later only this time he was standing in the entryway of SF Supermarket just down the street and later being pursued by an angry cell phone wielding Asian man....makes me wonder what he was doing at the restaurant if he wasn't a patron.
I miss Pho Ca Dao in San Diego!