Cuu Long Vietnamese Restaurant

I will start this review by saying that it is very difficult for me to return to a place where the service was poor several times– even if the food is amazing… HOWEVER… it has come to my attention that not ALL staff at Cuu Long, Aiea, is rude. I was contacted by Quyen A., the owner’s child with an apology on behalf of my negative experience with an offer of amends via a complimentary appetizer. While it is unlikely that I will cash that in, it was still greatly appreciated that I was acknowledged as a valued customer and encouraged to return. The reason for what I interpreted as poor service was supposedly due to ESL reasons… Though, coming from a bilingual home, I am still firm in my first/​second/​third impression. I say that regretfully as their phở is the best on the island WITHOUT A DOUBT.
Conclusion: Dining in is still probably a «no»… but dining out perhaps I will look forward to giving another chance.
Mahalo, Quyen, for explaining and understanding where we are coming from. I do wish the best for you and your family and hope to ‘get over myself/​pride’ and get me some amazing phở again.
As critics go, it is very easy for us to judge and criticize while those on the receiving end have the most to lose. It is they who persevere through our public reviews and –in this case– try to face and make up for any negative reactions not caused by their actions. That is where REAL customer service comes into play. Kudos and bravo to Quyen from Cuu Long. I’ll be expecting a life-​changing phở in the future from Cuu Long.

Wife and I have come here for a while. It gets busy but really good food. She likes the tripe phở and I like the lemongrass chicken. Only downside is they get crowded and sometimes a wait.

I’ve been coming to cuu long long before they renovated! They have really good ca phe sua da (Vietnamese iced coffee) & Thai tea here!
The phở broth is very good, but I’ve come to learn that if you do order a large it’s a bit more watery? No idea why. But I usually get a medium anyway, I can never finish the medium for just myself! It’s very filling and good portion for a good price.
I also love their summer & spring rolls here! The sauce that they both go with (peanut sauce for summer and fish sauce for spring) is both really tasteful!
Another two dishes I enjoy here are the vermicelli (lemongrass + spring roll combo) it’s the BEST!!! Also if you’re not that into phở or anything like that the BBQ chicken plate is also really really good, soooo flavorful!
They also added banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich) to their menu that I really want to try! My grandma makes them all the time and they are so so amazing.
The staff here is also very nice & attentive! Which is a plus! always keeps out water filled, checks up on us frequently, and makes sure everything is okay, I love it here! Will always be a returning customer! :)

Well it’s not the best, but I didn’t mind it. All I got was their summer roll which was decent. Though we all have a different taste and for me this restaurant was not the place. Too small of a place and too loud and busy… but it’s a good place for a snack. Would go back and explore their food more.

Worst place ever to eat Phở. I ordered a large and was served with veggies made for a small bowl! I asked for more and they added 2 more pieces of the veggie!!! Soup does not have a deep flavor, thereby watery. This is the 2^nd time there and I would not recommend to anyone !!!

Great place on this side of island with out driving to Town for some phở! Their phở here is pretty good. I also love their pork chop over rice and BBQ pork with spring rolls over vermicelli noodles. This place can get bit crowded but they are pretty quick with service and cleaning of the tables.

Perfect place to come when you’re craving phở. The prices are decent & service is okay. They usually only have maybe 1 or 2 servers for the whole restaurant so sometimes you have to wait to get refills on water. The restaurant is medium sized, there’s a long table in the middle and couple of tables on each side of the restaurant. I usually order 2 beef combination & an order of spring rolls for me & the other half and the bill only comes out to about $ 25. This place is located in the pearl Kai shopping center so there is plenty of parking whether it be near or far.

My favorite meal place for almost 9 years, I don’t even care that you’re place is too crowded to even get a seat… I’ve learned to order ‘to go’ and enjoy the deliciousness at home.

I went here with my boyfriend and left full and satisfied. I felt this place gave you the most food for a great price. My boyfriend and I got milk tea, coffee, summer rolls, two phos, and a banmi sandwhich for less than $ 50 including tip.
The summer rolls tasted fantastic, I could taste the herbs, shrimp, lettuce, green onions, and rice noodles. The peanut sauce tasted marvelous with its creamy base. Overall, I would rate this a 3.5÷5 stars.
The Thai Tea tasted amazing, there was just enough sweetness for this drink– the only thing that was missing was bobba for me and it would have made a perfect bubble drink. lol I would say this was a ⁴⁄₅ star drink.
The base for the phở tasted okay, it wasn’t the best or worst, but it was good enough for us to return back to this restaurant because you got a lot of meat and rice noodles for such a cheap price.
The banmi sandwhich was amazing, but I couldn’t get much since this was my boyfriend’s sandwhich. lol He really enjoyed it and would definitely get it again if we’re in the area.

Best place to get phở on islands.
The service is always timely and friendly. My biggest recommendation would be whatever size bowl you want, ask them to put it in a bigger bowl if you want to add the veggies.
Their pork sandwiches are also super delicious. However, sometimes the bread is a little harder than I would like.
Overall, one of my favorites.

This is my favorite place for phở soup. It’s not that big, and not that fancy, however the customer service is very helpful. If you come repeatedly, they’ll remember your order. The business is family based, so it’s a family business. Always fresh, and always tasty. My go-​to place for delicious soup.

I think this might be my favorite phở spot on the island. Its not big, its not very fancy, the service is kinda not really great but more like the servers might just be family of the owners, helping out when they can…
but it tastes good, always fresh, and has little amenities that make it my go-​to place.
(1) Not only do they have the normal assortment of sauces you find on a phở restaurant table, but they also have sugar !!! I know most ppl dont put sugar in their phở but its something I learned with a group of Khmer & Laotian friends & man, it is gooooood!
(2) The bathroom here is always on point. One of my pet peeves is cold faucet water in a public bathroom so it really impresses me that I can always count on warm water to wash my hands here. And the toilet paper is always fully stocked!

They give soooooo much meat! And it’s cheap! And the broth is tasty! AND it’s close to home!
So what if the tables are always only partially clean and almost always wet? Mamasan comes by to verbally make sure «everything ok?» Mhm. I smile and nod cos the veggies are fresh and they don’t grumble when I ask for my bean sprouts to be steamed or doggy bag for the spring rolls that I ordered when my eyes were too big for my stomach.
Cuu Long is aight!

The boyfriend and I’s go to place for phở in the Pearl City area.
Parking isn’t the greatest but it is in Pearl Kai so it’s gonna be busy no matter what.
The place is pretty laid back. There’s a bunch of chopsticks, spoons, napkins, and various condiments on each table so it’s pretty self serve. They do serve you water.
We love coming here because it’s fast and has pretty good service. It’s also pretty consistent. You know what to expect when you come here. This time, I didn’t get as much broth…
Overall, one of the better phở places in the Pearl City area.

My friend and I came here for a late lunch. We initially were going to eat curry but they took cash only and we were too lazy to go find an ATM.
I’ve eaten here before a long time ago and thought it was good. I also ate at their location in Chinatown. Unfortunately, this visit wasn’t all that great. The service was ok and quick, but the food was lackluster. The broth was meh and had a funky swamp smell to it. They also didn’t offer jalapeños with their basil and bean sprouts and that sucks.
Parking is hard to find here in the Pearl Kai Shopping Center which also makes it not worth coming. Go to Phở Five O down the road for better quality phở.

My co-​worker kept raving about the XL phở this place serves. So I decided to try this place with them on our lunch break. They weren’t kidding — it’s HUMANGOUS! I ended up getting a medium Phở Tai with spring rolls on the side. My other two coworkers got the large and XL. It was like the three little bears .
I need to disclose the fact that I am a townie, and phở restaurants in town are pretty expensive. So when I saw Cuu long prices, my eyes went huge for their $ 4 spring rolls!!!
So the food comes out, and sure it looks like phở, but not quite as appetizing because the broth was pretty dark and not as clear as the places I’ve been where their broth is clear and super tasty. This broth was cloudy, and pretty bland to me. I had to add A LOT of sauce. And I rarely ever have to add sauce to anything when I eat at phở restaurants. The one thing I like though is that they gave a lot of unions and beef. But the beef was pretty tough and hard to chew even though it was thinly sliced.
The spring rolls were oily and not as tasty either. I ended up leaving 2 pieces behind because I couldn’t stomach it. I too had to cover it in sauce to even continue eating after the first bite.
And the water! I can taste the inside of the faucet. Maybe I’m too much of a filtered water kind of girl, but it was worse than drinking straight from a water hose. I could taste of the dirtiness of it.
Service was good though! Waitress was friendly and order was taken quickly. Water was filled periodically.
Other than that, Sorry Cuu Long, I wasn’t impressed. Other people are because it was super busy, but hey, I’ll stick to my favorites.

My mom in a rare instance said she wanted to eat Vietnamese food. Since Cuu Long was on the way home, I took her here. I haven’t been to Cuu Long in years. The first time I ate here I remember my friends and I ordered the summer rolls and instead of getting the rolls already made, we were given a bowl of warm water and the sheets or rice paper with the fillings on another plate. That was the first time I ever had to roll my own summer rolls. We had to submerge the rice paper in the water and then when it softened we could roll up the fillings. Back to our recent visit, I didn’t order the summer rolls this time because I didn’t want to make my own rolls at the moment. Upon entering the restaurant, I saw that it wasn’t busy that Sunday evening since there were lots of tables empty. Nobody greeted us when we came in. We weren’t sure if we should seat ourselves, but we did anyway. There were at least three girls who were serving tables and none of them greeted us. A couple of minutes after sitting at a table a girl gave us menus. I ordered the combo phở and my mom ordered the lemon grass chicken and spring rolls vermicelli bowl. Both of our meals were tasty. I actually wished I ordered the vermicelli bowl instead of the phở. What was odd about our dining experience was it was as quiet as a library in there. None of the other patrons seemed to be talkative and there was no music playing to make this restaurant’s ambiance seem less like a library and more like a casual place to dine.

If I could give this place no stars I would.
I’ll keep this short, but the whole experience was horrible.
Food: I ordered a Phở, my friend ordered a phở and my other friend got the bbq chicken.
I start digging into my phở, and guess what! In my noodles I find a HAIR! Yuck!!! Come to find out my other friend found a hair in his phở too!!! Disgusting. They did bring out new phos but still at the same time it seriously turned us off from eating.
2 hairs in two soups GROSS.
Plus it just didn’t taste right.
Never coming back here again.

It’s convenient to come here if you’re near or from the area. The prices are very cheap and the food is perfect for your quick phở fix! Order the #16 bowl, seems like that’s what everyone gets! I can finish a medium but a large is way too much! So if you like to finish what you order, just get medium. Their Thai tea is pretty good as well.
Waiting is kind of weird cuz I’ve seen it get busy during weekends. Apparently they don’t take names and you just line up outside. This can get awkward if you don’t know where the line is and can’t really communicate with the Asians waiting outside… Lol.

This is a very clean, friendly, and delicious place to eat. I knew it was going to be good when there was a line out the door and surrounding establishments were near empty.
Started with autumn rolls and they were fresh crispy and delicious. Phở came next and it was as good as any that I have ever had. Definitely recommend this spot, pay no attention to the haters lol.