Lam Hoa Quan Restaurant

Full review with pictures on my blog

This place is hands down my fave Phở place in Vancouver. The broth is tasty as hell. Don’t listen to that other reviewer that said the broth was tasteless (she prolly had a cold). They also give you a ton of meat, and the freshness of the meat is consistently fresh. I’ve been here more than a dozen times and the ingredients always taste the same and are fresh unlike some places which can serve you stale meat depending on the time of day (I’m looking at you Kongee noodle house!!).
There was a shooting here one time but don’t let that scare you away. It was a targeted gang shooting and Vietnamese people have the best aim. Just stay low and eat your phở.

Delicious northern Vietnamese food. My fav are their phở with chicken broth, topped with chicken and beef, chicken noodle soup and chicken and bamboo shoots noodle soup. Broths are very flavourful and savoury in contrast to southern phở broths. Make sure you order their side dish of half chicken.

We were intending on eating at the Phở restaurant a few stores away but at 2pm still had a lineup so decided to try Lam Hoa Quan instead. Happy to find quick service, great tasting phở (broth was delicious and the beef balls were nice and soft, rare beef wasn’t very rare and was a bit clumpy but whatever), and perfectly battered and fried spring rolls!
The raw bean sprouts we ordered at first looked cooked but we then noticed they were just lightly dipped in hot water. Lots of basil given along with lime wedges and thinly sliced shallots.
Great meal and I would go there again!

Chicken & Beef Phở. The phở is good here, but not the best for Van. This place is good when you’re in the mood.

Came here once in December. Ordered the bun Bo hue and it wasn’t very good. Not sure why it’s so busy here. It’s your regular not so special vietnamese restaurant. Doubt I will be back

This is another Phở place we planned to try along Victoria Drive. I heard they are northern style Vietnamese phở but apparently I don’t know the different.
I would not say this is authentic phở! There are many places serve better phở than lam hao quan.
I had rare beef and beef balls phở, only few pieces chewy beef and broth was tasteless.
My hubby had house special beef phở, poor quality of beef and some gingers on top of it.
The phở was below average, plus no AC. I don’t think this place can eat in summer time. Anyway, this is not recommended!

Another Vietnamese place in the Victoria and 33^rd area. There are several establishments with a few blocks, so the competition is tight.
Parking is available in the back. If the lot is full, there are still the side streets and Victoria.
The inside is a bit more traditional, with the wooden tables and traditional artwork.
The spring rolls here are unique. The skins are thicker than usual, and they have that nice fluffy texture.
Sadly, the phở here is only mediocre. The beef balls were rubbery, and the beef slices were just one giant lump. The soup is also different is that while there were fewer onion slices, there was much more chopped cilantro. Curiously, the phở soup also had a lump of diced ginger in the middle — I have never seen phở served with ginger, ever. Not even in Vietnam. It is not bamboo, as I found out the hard way.
The bill comes with pomelo (Chinese grapefruit) flavoured candy. Yay!
If the neighbourhood had a Vietnamese cook-​off, sadly, I don’t think this place would be the champion.

A small restaurant that doesn’t have much elbow room or space between tables. Their bowls of phở are large and I like that they provide you with shallots with your bean sprouts, lime and hot peppers. Don’t order the spicy phở unless you like lots of chili oil coating everything as my friend discovered. You can’t go wrong with their house special.

The next best thing to home cooked PHO, is right here!!!
Their beef PHO is good, but I crave for their chicken PHO quite often. Best of both worlds I order the chicken PHO with crunchy beef flank.
I’ve tried other dishes but I just stick to the PHO because its solid. Service is hit or miss, but if the sister’s are around you know they’ll treat you well:)

I found this place super oily. The soup had a glimmering layer of oil on top, and the spring rolls left small puddles of oil on their plate as you pick it up. However, I do recognize that some people like the oily, so… moving on! The soup itself was pretty damn tasty, and the noodles were cooked well without getting too mushy. Spring rolls weren’t tasty enough to justify the oily. Patrons included quiet tables of small Asian families, and one large table of loud, young Asian hooligan kids, hootin’ and hollerin’.
I’m not opposed to coming again at all, but I’d probably skip the spring rolls and just do a large phở. However, with its limited hours (I think they close around 9?), it’s probably a bit unlikely that I’ll be back.

This is a good phở place — you can tell because its patrons are all Vietnamese. Always a good sign.
The broth is quite yummy, the noodles are well cooked and the meat is delicious — specifically the beef balls which taste like Mom’s. I enjoyed that they gave us loads of bean sprouts, limes, mints & even shallots! Yum. I so thoroughly enjoyed the food that I didn’t even bother with oyster sauce or rooster sauce.
The servers are friendly and the service is quick. No language barriers either — everyone speaks English well enough that you won’t question whether or not you’re going to get what you wanted.
This place used to be cash only but now accepts interac and Visa! Yay. Makes life easier for sure.

I was hungry and looking for some good soup noodles on the area. Unilocalers to the rescue! based on the other reviews I thought I would give this humble looking place a try. What i can say is that this place serves up one of best Phở in town.
The soup base is tasty and not heart stopping salty or oily. They use a bit of ginger in the base which give it a nice addition layer in taste. I like the extra condiments they provide for the meal such as bits of red chili. To round out the meal, I tried their coconut shake. Wow, it was delish with bits of coconut meat mixed with some coconut water and coconut milk.
Service was friendly and attentive. This was the first place I’ve been to where I was asked if I wanted cooked bean sprouts instead or raw to put in the soup (I guess some people don’t like it raw). The food came out amazingly fast considering how busy it was.
Overall, a very good experience and one place I would easily recommend.

Definitely in the top three of best Phở in town!
Consistently serving up killer phở and proper spring rolls with every visit.
There never seems to be many people in there, but I’m fine with that as this is definitely fast food. Served by the friendliest staff.
I’ve even managed to convert a few non believers that this place is legit!

This place is excellent. One of many Viet restaurants on the street, and you can even enjoy your meal while looking out the window at three other Viet restaurants. ;) (In Seattle you can usually only enjoy this feature in a Starbucks adjacent to Starbucks and Starbucks…)
Anyway, the folks that work here are very nice and friendly. If you’re not a frequent eater of Viet food this is a great place to give it a try. Not only is it high quality, but the staff is friendly and helpful.
Although I have to admit, if you start out at Lam Hoa Quan your average late night phở joint may not be sufficient to satisfy you in the future! Their uniquely rich and ginger-​y broth is like no other I’ve had in the city. I haven’t sampled much of the menu outside of the phở, but their blended drinks and shakes also look amazing. Definitely worth the trek over to Victoria Drive, even if you’re not commonly in the area. (But get here early, they close for dinner a bit prematurely in this night owl’s opinion.)
Afterward you can pop over to Karmony for a slice of swiss roll cake and go home to tend your food baby.

Pretty decent. All their noodle soups are one size for $ 7.95. It’s a size of a large bowl. Im really loving the broth for the bun Bo hue. It has ginger in it. And the flavor was really good. And it came with a bowl large enough for my sprouts and basil. Spicy but in a good way.
The cha gio was good and came with a side of noodles and shredded lettuce.
The lemongrass chicken was good. So I heard. And it came with a bowl of soup/​broth.
All in all it would be a place I would stop by again. Parking is on street but maybe they have a back parking lot. I kept seeing ppl come from the back somewhere

Typical hole in the wall, to be expected.
For $ 12, including well done beef phở soup & iced coffee, it’s a winner ;)
Coffee makes my top 5 list, good coffee flavour, not overly masked by condensed milk.
nice texture to noodles; broth was also tasty, w/​o the msg as i wasn’t overly thirsty, a good sign.
the good seating, if you’re alone, is at the front where there’s a good-​size ledge to put your work bag, etc.
cash only.
nice service.
only beef I would have is the chopsticks aren’t in the paper wrap like a few others.

#30DaysOfYelp: ²⁸⁄₃₀
What are the signs of a good, authentic phở place? Tacky décor? Check. Stark lighting? Check. So-​so service, Asian clientele, language barrier, cash only? Check, check, and check!
As long as you remember that all these things come standard, don’t worry about them! All that really matters is the food.
I’m glad I discovered this place! I first came here on the advice of other Unilocal reviewers, as where I live, there are a ton of Vietnamese restaurants, and I had no idea where to start! I think it’s my favourite place to go for Phở so far. Noodle soup is totally my comfort food. Memories of my childhood!
I usually get the rare steak phở. The secret is in the broth. It’s rich and flavourful and not as salty as some places. The meat is tender, and juicy. Sometimes other restaurants give you the crappy meats with chewy bits and gristle, but this steak is delicious and easy to eat. The ginger on top and chipped chilies on the side add a nice touch.
Service isn’t actually that bad. It looks like it’s a family run restaurant, and I’ve been served by both of the two daughters who work there, and they’re always super friendly to me.
One time my boyfriend got my phở to go so I could have it later at home, and one of the daughters gave him a separate bag for the noodles, a bowl for the broth, a container for the rare meat, and another bag for the bean sprouts and sauce! She then gave him instructions on how best to prepare it! No compromises on quality, love it!\.
The only thing that sucks is that the prices went up a bit, and even the Vietnamese coffee is more expensive! Aw! This doesn’t deter me, though!

Upon several Vietnamese acquaintances’ recommendations, we decided to trek over to Victoria Dr to scope out Lam Hoa Quan for a late-​night dinner at about 9pm on a weeknight. Closed! Unfazed, we returned the following day for lunch, and what a lunch it was. Service was friendly. The owner is Vietnamese-​Chinese (hence the surname «Lam»), and so his Vietnamese wife actually speaks some Cantonese — which I discovered when my grandma just began speaking in Cantonese to her…
First off, the sliced shallots are a nice touch, though you should be forewarned that the red bird’s eye chilis are potent. I think they blanche the bean sprouts, which simultaneously sanitizes them and removes the raw taste that I don’t like, while preserving the sprout’s crunch. Again, nice touch. As for the noodles, they were substantial, not mushy, and generously portioned.
The house specialty CHICKEN phở came as an atypical but delicious concept. In fact, the next time I’m sick and craving some chicken noodle soup, it just might be Lam Hoa Quan’s! The free-​range cut-​up chicken is akin to the kind you’d find at most Chinese restaurants — you know, with the yellowish skin and firm and tasty meat. My grandma only eats this kind of chicken now, shunning as she does the over-​medicated generic variety, so she was pleased with the quality. The soup base is chicken, too, rather than the darker beef broth.
As for the BEEF phở, it was also delicious. I know many reviewers have only tried the chicken (since Unilocalers love to bandwagon, it seems, for fear of trying something untried!). But I’m pleased to report that the beef is just as fantastic and just as better than most other Phở shops as one would hope. Lam Hoa Quan does an interesting manoever with the rare beef: they kind of partially hack the piece in criss-​cross fashion with the back of a cleaver so that it’s tenderized and almost diced, but still intact. Reminds me of a super thin Salisbury steak. They do this to the ginger as well, which provides just the right balance to the beef without overpowering. [See photos]
Both the fried and unfried SPRING ROLLS were delicious, with the former excelling in the taste and texture categories. Next time, I’d like to try the chicken and pork chop rice dishes.

I was pulled to this place by my brother for their specialty chicken and phở. I was actually quite surprised, as when you think phở, you think beef and beef broth, but the specialty is really in the chicken! I have always crossed this place located on Victoria Drive, never ever going in, and now I must say it is one of my favorites for this cuisine.
It is an average sized place, with a small tv in the corner, and when you see the local Vietnamese come in here, and fill this place up and also order the popular poultry and noodle, you know they are doing something right! They give you a good serving of chicken when you order a bowl, they do not cheap out, you might look at the prices on the menu and think, I can get some cheaper phở somewhere else, but here, your paying for what your getting, and that is value and quality. Big bowls, substantial noodles, and a good serving of meat at your disposal, just to see how you will devour and say anything after is the question.
I come in here, and want to order the regular beef phở, but it always leads back to the chicken, maybe it is the special mixed powder that you make into the sauce that you like to dip the ‘free range’ chicken that gets me. I do not know, but when someone talks about this place, I say «oh, that chicken phở joint!».