May Wah Restaurant

The drunken noodles here are so great! The other dishes are also tasty, drunken noodles just are my favorite. The servers are all very kind and friendly, and the restaurant is able to accommodate gluten-​free and vegan meals. The inner ambiance is also nice– I love sitting by the pandas ;-)

This place deserves 3 stars, maybe 2.5 if that was an option. A year ago I would have given this place 4 stars, but in the four years I have been in Boulder I have only seen this place go down hill.
The reason I am giving this a low review is that the phở is a bit bland. They really have started to be very frugal with their noodles and meat as well. It is about $ 9 for $ 5 worth of food. You may be better off going somewhere else.
The service is mediocre/​bad, but to be fair that may just be the loudness that is associated with the more traditional Southeast/​East Asian Culture. A lot of the servers will be Vietnamese or Chinese and they may yell at you, but it’s not necessarily meant to be rude. I am drawing upon inferences I am making based on my own upbringing (I am Vietnamese).
For example during my last meal here:
Waitress: Do you want anything to drink?
Me: No thank you, I am fine.
Waitress: NOT EVEN WATER!!!
Me: I could take a glass of water.
*Waitress walks away without further comment

My husband and I ate here on a trip to Boulder and we were so happy we stopped in! We ordered the Phở soup and the egg roll bowl with lettuce replacing the noodles (on recommendation from our server after i asked for something like salad). Everything was delicious, generously portioned, healthy, and not expensive at all. The best part was the service — we fell in love with our server (Meng) and the owner’s daughter was very gracious and made us feel very welcome. This is a great place if you want good honest food and service and don’t need a fancy storefront. highly recommend it!

I can only honestly speak to about three dishes on the menu — the phở nam, the Vietnamese chicken bowl & the Vietnamese pork bowl. I’d heard that Vietnamese was the way to go here and that piece of advice was spot on. The phở is some of the best I’ve had outside of Vietnam — really nice, flavorful broth and tons of fresh herbs. Ditto the chicken & pork bowls — fresh vegetables, good flavor. Service was fast and all of the restaurant staff were friendly.

Ordered delivery on Friday because of a referral from a friend. I was super disappointed with the sweet and sour pork, meat was overcooked and flavor was really bland.
Delivery was fast, and the thai tea was delicious though.

The restaurant is a bit sketchy looking form the outside. I always become concerned when an Asian restaurant serves three different types of Asian food but my friend invited me so I went along for the ride.
I ordered drunken noodles and they were actually pretty good. The noodles were very tasty and the dish had the right heat. The dish was four stars but the overall appeal of the restaurant wasnt so great resulting in the 3 stars. I have other places I prefer for Chinese, Vietnamese or Thai food :)

Very indifferent. Extremely prompt delivery, but barely edible…

My fiancé and I ate here on Monday after our hike. We got about half way thru our late lunch only to find a cockroach in my fiancé’s PHO! The server at 1^st even wanted us to pay! He told her she is lucky we dont call the health dept. On them. I would suggest to find a place that doesnt have cockroaches in thier food.

Top 5 for me as far as Chinese in Boulder. Delivery was super fast which was a plus. Love the Vietnamese egg rolls, crab cheese wontons, egg rolls. Asked for my Mongolian beef extra spicy. Nailed it. I like this place a lot.

Pretty good. I was nervous after reading these reviews however it wasn’t bad. I had the hot and sour soup, which was nice. I also had the chicken satay, which I totally recomend to anyone who likes peanut but not a whole lot of spice. Great flavor, and tons of chicken and vegetables. Definately enough for two to share if you’re light eaters. I also had the Thai Iced tea which was on par with other places. Delivery was fast, I’d say within 20 minutes and my order wasn’t messed up.

By far our favorite Chinese restaurant in Boulder. A good variety of dishes and the waiters are very nice. Delivery is typically pretty fast.

This is hands down the best chinese and thai food in boulder. no question. Delivery is INSANELY fast, ordered tonight, was here (2 miles away) in under 15 min… no idea how they even did it, but it was amazing as always. Sesame Chicken (get it extra spicy if you like that, they do it right) and the pan fried dumplings and you are SET. Amazing, love it, if you dont, no one cares, your mouth is wrong.

I discovered this place a few years ago and I always seem to end back up here when I am craving Vietnamese food. I think they do a GREAT vermicelli bowl and its loaded with vegetables, which I appreciate. I also think their phở is surprisingly awesome! The broth is very flavorful and they give you a HUGE portion.
I think their Chinese/​Thai food is also pretty good! I am not a huge fan of orange chicken but all my friends who have ordered it there have LOVED it. I’ve tried their mongolian beef, beef and broccoli, chicken lo-​mien, green curry, pad thai, pad see eiw, and a bunch of their appetizers and I thought they were all pretty good. If you want Thai, this is not the place to go. The Pad Thai is good, but definitely not as good as Thai Avenue and the pad see eiw is not made with traditional wide rice noodles.
I definitely recommend this place to anyone who needs a Vietnamese/​Chinese food fix!

Our waiter was extremely kind and funny. The phở was some of the best we’ve had in Boulder, and we pride ourselves on trying all the phở in an area. Great staff, great service, great food! Definitely recommend it, even over Chez Thuy!

Their orange chicken was excellent, but not very pleased about anything else there. The duck tastes like peanuts.

We’ve been eating here for 10+ years and we’re always happy. The food is consistently delicious and the prices (especially at lunch) are very good. My favorite thing on the menu is the Vietnamese rice noodle bowl – a large portion for the price; comes with a yummy Vietnamese eggroll. All of the available meats & tofu are super tasty. (Best noodle bowl in Boulder, IMO). The Chinese dishes, rice paper wraps, lo mein, and satay are also delicious. We’ve never been disappointed.
However, I would agree with the comments about the wait staff. The hostess/​owner in particular is very unpleasant, but we’ve been going there long enough that some of the wait staff recognize us and are always very friendly.
Not very kid-friendly…there is not a kid’s menu and the kind of quiet environment isn’t very great for rambunctious little ones either. And cleanliness is questionable.

We got delivery.
Good solid Chinese food.
The Mongolian beef is great.
Orange chicken is good.
The port dumplings were bland. Too much dough.
I’d totally eat here again.

Really liked the food and atmosphere. But the bathrooms were a mess, and it cast a pall over the rest of the time there. Definitely edible, but I’d be cautious.

Pssst… I’ll let you in on a secret…
They have dim sum here on the weekends. Pretty tasty! Buns, weird little dishes, some strange pastry box thing filled with seafood… I’m thinking it’s a totally different menu than during the week, we were well-​satisfied. Why they keep this a secret, I’ll never know, but call and double-​check; it may have been a fluky idea they were trying out.

This place can be a bit tricky, the menu is extremely hit-​or-​miss, but when it’s a hit, it’s excellent!
If at all possible, I would highly suggest you refrain from ordering any sort of Thai food, but oddly enough, the Vietnamese selection is pretty strong and the Rice-​Paper-​Wraps are absolutely amazing (and the main reason they landed 3 stars)
The rice-​paper wraps may seem a bit pricey initially (I believe the pork or beef version tends to fluctuate between 12.95−14.95) but it is easily enough food to feed two women or a rather hungry fella. Honestly, this may sound sacrilegious, but May Wah’s platter is much tastier, higher quality beef (and oddly enough I suspect a better price) than many of the places on Federal Blvd (New Saigon, Saigon Bowl, etc)
Further explanation: this is essentially a «make-​your-​own» spring-​roll platter where the rice papers are brought out with a steaming bowl of water to soften them up and then the platter itself usually includes grilled beef/​pork, lettuce, cilantro, mint, pickled carrots and daikon, cucumber, fried shallots, beansprouts and rice noodles along with the traditional Vietnamese Nuoc Cham.
I have had friends order the Pad Thai and the Panang curry, and would definitely intervene in any future trips there. The noodles on the Pad Thai were lacking sauce/​flavor and were a bit dry whereas the curry oddly enough seemed to have peanut butter, which one might expect in some renditions of Massamun but not with Panang (as far as I am aware of).
Again, this is a Chinese-​run restaurant that happens to be quite talented with Vietnamese, so stick to those and avoid the Thai!
While the regular waitress is far from friendly, things tend to go much better if you keep in mind she’s more of an «authentic» Chinese server, extremely efficient, gets you what you need (water, forks, etc) but will not be there to inquire as to how your day went or provide a detailed opinion on the merits of Thai Fried Rice when compared with the Cashew Chicken.