Kim-Son Vietnamese Restaurant

This place looks ridiculous from the outside, but the food is worth a shot.
But let’s be serious for a second: it’s Thai food without a doubt. I can’t say why this hasn’t been re-​categorized yet.
So, the experience: Overshot it while en route, so had to double back. Mild disbelief at first, but then we opted to go for it. A number of people already there, and more always circulating in. Largely small groups. It seems that the space can handle a 10 – 14 person gathering amongst the normal guests, but I’d given them a heads up. At the time (a Friday night, I believe) there was only one waitress on staff to handle what amounted to 6 – 8 tables at any moment. I’m not familiar with the customary assignments for waitstaff, but they could have used another hand.
They messed up on my bill and another table’s bill in the 30 – 40 minutes we were there, which caused some uneasiness. And based on the mentions of similar problems by other reviewers, I’d keep an eye out on this.
The food was quite delicious and vegetarian-​friendly as one might suspect. But the drinks were overpriced, so I’d stick to water. We also tried the fried tofu — they could have used a few more seconds in the fryer, but still moist and pleasing.
As far as the pricing, it fits the product well. It’s certainly not a steal, but it won’t burn a hole through your pocket.
Final point: Some of the best thai food I’ve had in the area, but there aren’t a ton of options, so that doesn’t say much.

Did not really enjoy this place. For phở, I think the taste of the soup is the most important and it wasn’t very good. The meat wasn’t very generous either.

Um, ok, I guess I didn’t get all the reviews on my blackberry Unilocal app (isn’t a great app) otherwise I would have seen Christina’s review– Kim Son is no more. I talked to the waitress, who was super friendly. The name of on the awning outside the restaurant is the same– but so faded its hard to read anyway. The waitress was wearing at Kim Son apron. But alas my foodie friends, there is no vietnamese food here! It’s Thai food now. The owners sold the place in the end of July and now it’s a Thai restaurant. Boo. I guess this needs to be categorized differently on a search function for Unilocal.I’m now on the lookout for a decent Phở place. Any suggestions?
PS. I was inherently disappointed that the menu has changed that I actually did not try the Thai food. However, the service was super friendly and the waitress even suggested another vietnamese place to go. She didn’t mind that we didn’t order. I guess she knew it was confusing.

As I pulled into the parking lot (craving vermicelli) I noticed the blinking sign in the window that said «Thai food.» That’s weird, I thought, I don’t remember seeing Thai food on Kim Son’s menu — but maybe they’re trying to branch out of serving exclusively Vietnamese?
When I entered, I didn’t notice any changes to the interior. When the menu was placed in front of me, I finally realized this was not the Kim Son I’d been to a few months before. The signage hasn’t changed, so I’m not sure if they’ll be under the same name of Kim Son much longer (hopefully not, because it’s confusing that the building still reads «Vietnamese restaurant»). It is in fact entirely a Thai resto now. The waitress, seeing my confusion as I leafed through the menu, came over to ask if I was looking for Viet food. She pointed out one dish on the menu a «noodle soup» that you could get with chicken or beef ball. I didn’t try it. When in Rome…
I wound up ordering off the lunch special menu (which is $ 7.95 and includes a bowl of soup). The soup was actually pretty good — a light broth filled with pieces of chicken, baby corn, green onion, and glassy noodles. My main course was the panang curry. It came with jasmine rice and a little dressed-​up garnish on the plate. A pretty good portion, especially for lunch. But the curry was a little lacking for me – the flavor was very one-​note, and the coconut milk tasted a little sour… like perhaps there was too much lime juice in it. Also, there were only a few slivers of red bell pepper mixed in with the chicken.
Service was very nice. And they didn’t mind me taking up a booth with my laptop, eating slowly, and getting a little work done while there.

I just did not find this place remotely impressive and the owner/​chef tried to rip me off.
Me: «Why did you add $ 1.99 to my phở?»
Her: «I give you 9 shrimp, normally only 6 shrimp.»
Me: «Yeah, but I didn’t get the chicken and roast pork that also came with this phở, so doesn’t the 3 extra shrimp make up for that?»
Her: «Fine, this time no charge.»
Yeah, ‘cuz there won’t be a next time, lady.
Food: Incredibly salty, not the best phở broth by far. Phở Cali in Raleigh is better. Prices for other dishes were also pretty expensive. Not many pescatarian friendly dishes, DID NOT EVEN HAVE FISH BALLS!
Environment: Horrible atmosphere, like a half-​assed remodeling of a Mexican resto. Normally would not fault a GOOD/​CHEAP ethnic resto for this, but Kim Son wasn’t good nor that cheap.
The saving grace was the deep-​fried bean cakes. Their Vietnamese coffee isn’t that good either. Our waitress was also pretty nice.
I swear to god I saw a drug deal go down. Dude comes in, walks straight into the back. A guy from the kitchen comes out and joins him in the bathroom. A minute later they both come out and the dude immediately leaves (did not order/​pick up anything) and the employee goes back to the kitchen.
Came here for my birthday dinner :(I cried that night (j/​k!).

Good price, good phở, and fresh lime, basil, and sprouts. the soup bowl was large as you would expect. The hot pepper slices were about ⁶⁄₁₀ in heat. I tried the phở w rare beef and phở w chicken. The noodles were both plentiful and delicious. the meats were good cuts, with the chicken lean but soft and the beef a little fatty, but not w chunks of fat.

We came in search of phở. Not the upscale also-​on-​the-​menu kind, but phở that is a restaurant’s raison d’être. The kind of phở you find in a gritty, urban, run-​down building in the industrial part of Oakland. Real phở.
But this is Durham.
I’d passed this building many times, never having given it a second look. All that changed tonight, on the first day of 2011.
The owner parked her car in the spot closest to the building; I guess it’s still that kind of neighborhood — or used to be, anyway — gentrification is happening here as well.
We were greeted by a hostess and shown into an otherwise absolutely deserted restaurant. Granted, it was New Year’s day and not quite dinner time, but still…
We had spring rolls with peanut sauce as an appetizer, and they were alright. But we had come for phở!
I must admit I was very pleasantly surprised. I had the #11, an egg-​noodle phở with chicken, shrimp and roast pork. My sweetheart had the #2, with clear rice noodles and beef. Both dishes were hot, plentiful and delicious. True comfort food! I would have preferred fresh cilantro and basil on the side (they gave bean sprouts, fresh lime and sliced jalapeños) — and the sauces were not as complex as they might have been — but it was fine, just fine. We even got a complimentary slice of cake for dessert — a sort-​of lemon pound cake /​fruitcake hybrid. But it fit nicely with our meal.
We saw a lot of reasons on the menu to come back.

The pork dumplings were delish!
The chicken phở was perfect with some of that red sauce to give it a kick, just what I needed, a weary traveller away from home, a nice comforting bowl of broth, chicken, rice noodles and bean sprouts.
The waitress also brought our party some complimentary desserts that were out of this world! One that was in between a brownie and a cake? maybe made with beans? And some sort of yellow cake with a coconut frosting MMMMMMMM.
And to top it off lots of green tea.
They also have one of my favs: Bubble Tea!!!
I would definitely recommend this place for anyone near Duke or Durham.
Another plus our waitress was so sweet!

As a Vietnamese-​American coming from the DC area, I’m happy to say that Kim Son comes the closest to fulfilling my cravings for real Vietnamese food. It is a little pricier than what Vietnamese food normally costs ($ 8.95 for a bowl of phở? ouch) but it is very authentic. I would recommend the caramelized cat fish in the claypot (ca kho to) which is served with rice. The fish is soft and tender and has got exactly the right ratio of sweet and saltiness. Other good dishes are pan fried noodles with seafood and meat (mi xao thap cam) and clear glass noodles with seafood (hu tieu nam vang). The owner is very sweet and brought a slice of cake for my party at the end of our meal. I think this is the place to go for authentic, delicious Vietnamese food and it’s a shame it always seems so empty when I go.

Kim-​Son is a pretty good restaurant. I am not ecstatic about the place but I enjoy the food and when I am in this area it is a place I’d still be tempted to visit. The owner is really nice and friendly. Sometimes service can be a little neglectful (it was on my last visit) but I think the owner was the only one handling service (not that that’s the best excuse). My last dish came with sausage but it wasn’t what I expected. Turns out, it was a type of Vietnamese sausage and my wife had it growing up. I guess it was authentic but I didn’t like it. I am a huge fan of the Lemongrass Chicken at Pho9N9 so I keep comparing Vietnamese to that. There might be some hidden gems on the Kim-​Son menu but I haven’t found found those yet. I haven’t given up on this place yet. Maybe some more advice from fellow Unilocalers will help me find a better dish here.

The owner chased us out the door to say thank you. I love.
I can’t believe people complain about the décor. It’s 100% «Asian restaurant supply store.» Actually quite lavish by those standards.
I got the veggie «phở». I know. I can’t speak to the real, beefy phở. But I had a huge portion of tofu and veggies in mine and left with a small bill and a great feeling about my experience.

Not impressive but will do given the lack of competition in town.

Wow, and not in a good way.
Where do I even begin, this whole dining experience left me traumatized. the decorations didn’t bother me so much, but this was one restaurant where I actually wondered if a health inspector would have a field day here. the best way to describe it is GRAY, it just didn’t look clean… I was afraid of catching something. I was really craving phở and after trying Phở 9n9 which is surprisingly closed on Sundays (what Asian place closes on Sunday?) this was my next choice being somewhat closer to campus. Looking at their menu their phở choices were pretty scarce, phở with rare beef or well-​done beef. No brisket, tripe, etc?! Since I was honestly scared of ordering anything rare in this place I decided to play it safe and ordered the well-​done option. Oh yeah, did I mention the server could not understand English and I think she had impetigo… As I’m waiting for my food I overhear the customers at the next table say that the food was good so that gave me some hope, but then it was all destroyed in a few minutes. Probably the worst phở I’ve ever had, with bland soup, tough beef, and watered-​down hoisin sauce??? Who waters down their hoisin sauce?! One of the worst experiences ever.

«Great Vietnamese food in an odd-​looking little restaurant»
My daughter explained this place perfectly with, «Talk about why not to judge a book by its cover…» The place looks pretty funky from the outside. Christina G. mentioned the Christmas lights (and yes, there’s still some on in March), and there’s also a series of flags atop the place.
It looks completely different on the inside– a small counter selling things on the left, and the seating area looks like a mid-​pricerange Asian restaurant (complete with the oft-​seen Chinese year-​of-​the-​X-​animal calendar placemats). Service was VERY friendly (although we were the only ones in the restaurant at 6:30pm on a Saturday night) — our hostess was patient despite us having no idea what to order for a long time, and offered very good suggestions.
We started with goi chay veggie rolls. Hearty yet not too flavorful– still, tasty with the soy sauce they came with. For main dish, I got the phở dac biet (mixed beef soup– picture attached) based on the recommendation that it was very flavorful. Man, she was right– that was the best darn phở I think I’ve ever had. It had various kinds of beef– I think a few pieces may have been organ meat (maybe heart?), but the broth was FANTASTIC, the meat was plentiful and tasty, and the noodles soaked in the flavor of the delicious broth, too. I didn’t add anything to it, but if you like spicy, a few dabs of the sauce on the table would make it still taste fantastic and also have kick. My wife got the phở rau dau hu (veggie & tofu) in a vegetarian broth. It was HEAPING with vegetables. When she mixed in the basil a bit and added a bit of the sauces on the table, it was phenomenally tasty. As Christina noted, the phos also came with jalapenos, sprouts and lime on the side. My kids split an order of bun dau hu xua xa ot (vermicelli dish w/​tofu, veggies, and ginger sauce). When we ordered and said that was for the kids, our hostess came back and told us it is often spicy and asked if we wanted it milder. We said yes, and were very appreciative of her attentiveness to our kids! The kids LOVED it… they were fighting over the tofu.
When we finished, our hostess brought us over two slices of truly amazing coconut cake (picture attached). Very nice of her.
Price was very reasonable– for everything above, it came to $ 33 (with tax, before tip).
My wife agreed this place deserves all 5 stars for quality, quantity, value, and great/​attentive service. We’ll definitely plan to go back– besides, we still have to try their bubble tea…

Nice little Vietnamese place, Had good service and great Phở. If i am in town again, i would consider going again.

Bah.. .. Real Vietnamese food must be sparse in the parts if this place is rocking such high ratings. Kim Son’s food is not bad,. .. it’s just kind of boring in flavor.
I had some noodles and egg rolls. The noodles were Ramen-​esque. The place is cute and the people are nice enough, but if you are looking to fulfill a craving for Vietnamese food – keep looking.

I visit my sister at school in Durham everyone once in a while, and I do not leave without stopping at this place (near fanatical with this). This is the first place I tried phở, and still tied for the best phở I have ever had. They also take away the award for best bubble tea I have ever had.
It seems like a fairly standard place and most of their menu items are only marginally delicious, but for phở and bubble tea fans it is definitely worthy of the praise I’ve given it.

Delicious Phở for NC.
The fried bean cakes and vegetable rolls are great too.
Service can be hit or miss but the prices are reasonable.
AND they have bubble tea.

The best bubble tea in Durham hands down. A couple of other places serve this tasty treat, but only Kim Son does it right and they’re not too pricey. Try the Kiwi or the milky tea.

OK food– on my last trip I ordered the make-​your-​own spring rolls, which is kind of fun. The phở is good too. For dessert they have deep-​fried bananas w/​ice cream which are just awesome.
update: now that i’m vegetarian, I didn’t like many options here… The Pad Thai was not so great, but maybe that is just because it was a Vietnamese variant of it, maybe.