Pho Palace

I’m here for a Phở. I got what I want with a good reasonable price. The place was neat and nice. I will still love to come back.

–Assorted Vegetables with rice noodle
–Thai Tea
Total: $ 14.21
For this price I’d expect a decent amount of food, however I didn’t receive much. My noodle plate was pretty shallow and my noodles were completely stuck together like it had been sitting out for a while. My veggies were good but sitting in some slimy broth which turned me off too. Also found a hair in my food.
Eat somewhere else

Place was very empty. I don’t think I’ll go there again. The noodles stuck together like they didn’t properly prepare it or just poured hot soup over it.

Stopped by for the first time. The ginger chicken on rice look like a leftover dish and found a hair. Seriously, that cost $ 8 isch. The chicken has no taste and kinda cold. Please refer to the photos.
I called and the lady who took the order. She kept telling me «Yes its bone and skin with little meat. » No apologies. All i can do it to ask them dont do it to other customers. Disappointed with this service and food.

I was in my teen years when my mother started bringing me to this place, more than 15 years later, this place is still great, delicious food, great service. Hu Tieh (hoac Mi) Hai San — seafood w/​rice noodle is my all time fav, among others.

I felt I was home eating, very quite and servers were leave you to eat. I had the beef with red rise and egg roll. It was very delicious. All the products were fresh. I liked this place very much I’ll be coming here again.

Not bad taste, only came here cause phở hoa was closed for Chinese New Year. The portions are SMALL. We ordered large for 8 something, even the people behind us were saying it was small. Tried to give it a chance, but it came off like they were stingy. Phở hoa, is the best! Good price, big portion. It’s down the street. All my friends were disappointed. Were still hungry!!!

If you’re around Chinatown in Los Angeles this place will give you the phở fix you want. It’s authentic because of the smell. There is a difference between Korean phở from Vietnamese phở. Having a keen sense of smell really helps before knowing the distinct taste of phở. The broth and types of meat and prepping is really the main focus. Funny fact is that the more dingy the place looks the better the food can taste. I know it sounds like crazy talk, but it’s really a hit or miss when it comes to Asian restaurants.

This place will probably never win «Customer Service of the Year» award. I came here with my daughter and we got seated right away since there were no customers in the restaurant. But it took a while to place an order since the person that sat us disappeared.
My daughter and I ordered the beef and tripe phở and pork chop with rice. It was all pretty good. The phở was decent, really heavy in star anise but it was still OK. My daughter loved the pork chops where she ate the two big pieces.
I don’t know if I will go there again since there are tons of other Vietnamese restaurants that I will want to try when I’m in Chinatown.

+ Nicely maintained
+ Reasonably priced
+ Broth is good if you’re here for phở/​noodles
+ Customer service is good and friendly
— (from my experience) noodles were hit or miss
Came here with my mom, we were hungry so we decided to try this spot out. From the moment in, we were greeted and welcomed. Which is nice for an Asian spot dining spot. My mom ordered some phở, I ordered phở as well but with egg noodles instead. I’d have to say, the broth was very good, the noodles on the other hand. not so much.
My mom’s noodles were much overcooked. While mine were a bit undercooked lol. This wasn’t that much of a deal breaker, but they could do better on that. I also had their Vietnamese coffee, very strong, but once the ice dilutes it down a bit, you’re good to go.
Overall, I’d come here if you can’t find anything else in the area. Wouldn’t make this a top priority, but good nonetheless.

Phở soup was bland, and deff not good phở. omg I never been to a discussing ass place in my life.
The worse phở restaurant I ever been too!!!
Horrible waitress !!!

I love how this place is so close to the gold line stop. I usually come here with my veggie eating friend, because he loves their huge vegan /​vegetarian selection. Their spicy vegetarian phở is great! It has tons of veggies, tofu and wheat gluten meat. The soup is good as well. It doesn’t leave me thirsty for water like other msg based phở soups.
The employees are always friendly here. And there is underground parking with valedation.

DO NOT GO HERE. DIARRHEA!
Upon arrival the waitress was pleasant. That was the only good thing about our experience here.
But with that being said it is beyond me how this place is still open. My sister and I ordered the phở tai (rare beef phở). She ate hers while I fed my baby. She was done by the time I started, before I took a bite I examined my food, usually I’m not picky but since I was breastfeeding I have to be extra careful. The beef was slimy and very gray. I did not feel comfortable eating it so I brought the bowl to the manager/​owner and told her I was not satisfied with the quality. Without asking me if I wanted something else she quickly said I still had to pay for it. I told her that’s fine and left the bowl there at the counter. She then told me to take my bowl back to my table. In short my sister got diarrhea. My friend ordered a different dish with chicken and also got diarrhea.
Worst customer service ever, disgusting food.
DO NOT GO HERE.

Mom and I was waiting for this vendor that sells dead paper monies to open up and so we had 30 mins to kill and decides to get some food. Decided on this place since the Phở place across the street grossed us out when we walked in and the waiter kept picking his nose upon greeting us and giving us our menus — yuck! –_–
Mom got phở Tai and I got the broken rice with baked steam egg, shredded pork and flat beef steak. The rice was a lil al dente and not in a good way. I liked the baked steamed egg and the shredded pork, but the beef was bland and kinda chewy — bad idea to finish the beef, but didn’t wanna waste food.
Man, should have left it — 5 mins later, gave me the runs… what a waste of $ 8 flushed down the toilet… not coming back here :(

It seems the Chinese New Year Celebration has begun-​Almost all the restaurants I frequent here in LA Chinatown closed their doors early today! So after much driving around this place presented itself like Aladdin’s lamp sticking out in the sand…
Phở Palace, sounds a little too grand considering my first impression of the place, like your typical Asian soup hub, Phở Palace has your regular accoutrements such as Sriracha, hoisin sauce, napkins, chopsticks and utensils on the table and the typical run of the mill décor which is virtually identical from every Phở place I have ever been to, the place is nothing special, however, their soup compensated for what they lacked in visual appeal.
We ordered two servings of egg rolls which comes 3 per serving, the rolls are… delicious! nice and crispy with a generous amount of herbs, romaine and a slightly sweet pickled cucumber, daikon and carrot, served with a small bowl of a fish sauce concoction dipping sauce, it was yummilicious! A good indication of what is to come.
My large bowl of Phở Dac Biet did not disappoint, the broth was very flavorful, the noodles and beef quite generous, served with a generous amount of bean sprouts, basil, mint, sliced jalapeño and sliced lime on the side, it truly was a very enjoyable meal. My friend tried the Beef stew with egg noodle which was a bit too spicy for him but nevertheless he said it was good.
Parking is not a problem if you want to come here, there is structure parking for $ 3.00 which will be validated after you settle your bill or street parking which in most cases are never unoccupied, make sure to bring cash as Phở Place is still living in the early 20^th century — your plastics won’t work here, there is a Bank of America a few yards from the restaurant though, a short trek to the bank to withdraw cash should really perk up your appetite :)
Overall, amidst the inconvenience of not accepting cards and the lack of visual creativity, Phở Palace really compensated their minor shortcomings with amazing flavors., I give them four stars for the food and 3 for getting stuck in the cart and wagon period.
Thank goodness for the Lunar New year, it gave us another option for our weekly Chinatown food adventures.

If you’re starving it gets the job done. I wouldn’t say it’s the worst but it wasn’t awesome. Service isn’t great. We had Phở and it was alright. I would highly recommend getting phở vegetarian style, tastes the best. Add lots of lime and hot sauce. Also the food tasted how the place smelled… crappy. Sorry.

Yum-​chimy-​yum-​yum. Got the beef phở and spring rolls. Delish. Been coming here for a while and i’ll definitely be back: D

I went to this restaurant a few weeks ago, and I have returned once more.
My initial impression of the environment was that it was the typical plain looking restaurant you’d see a lot in South East Asia. It wasn’t clean, but it wasn’t dirty either.
In there, you are «greeted» by the only two waitresses there. (I’m pretty sure they were the same people when I visited my first time.) I know for sure the lady, who doesn’t seem to smile or have any enthusiasm, is the owner and waitress. She does give off the unfriendly vibe on both visits. I tried smiling at her and being polite, but she seemed unfazed by it. However, her attitude is compensated by the other waitress, who was utterly polite and patient; polite because when she came to drop off our food, she even said «hello,» and patient because when we became very indecisive about the drinks, she stood there with a smile. So, that made me feel a little bit better.
Both times I’ve come here, I’ve ordered Phở #16, which was Vermicelli with rare steak and beef balls, along with Ice Tea. I feel as if this is the only thing that this place is good for really. The phở itself is a decently sized portion with enough meat and noodles to satisfy a bad craving. In addition, it’s only $ 5.95, so honestly the price isn’t that bad either. The Ice Tea, I think, helps combat this hot L.A. weather and it’s pretty refreshing. You can tell that it wasn’t your typical American Ice Tea but rather some herb-​yish tea. (I, unfortunately, do not know what kind of tea was it exactly). I think it’s worth the try since it’s $ 1.

The first-​timer here.
The food is not bad but not too impressive either.
The female waitress seemed annoyed when we walked in late afternoon.
Maybe she was on her break or daydreaming but hey she didn’t need to make us feel that bad though.
I won’t probably go back. At least I am sure that I will not go back to the place at my own expense.

Foreword: This place used to be called «Phở Pagolac» up until they closed (supposedly for remodeling, although it doesn’t look like anything was changed besides the restaurant signage) and reopened maybe around 2012 – 2013?
I’ve been eating here for years, mostly due more to convenience factors than anything else — the food is reasonably tasty, quickly prepared, and relatively cheap (and most importantly, the restaurant is very close to my office). Overall, I’d say this is a fairly average and unremarkable Vietnamese restaurant … I’ve been to better, and I’m pretty sure I’ve also eaten at worse. Like many other places, this restaurant can be pretty hit or miss, depending on what you happen you order.
You really can’t go wrong with most of their vermicelli and broken rice dishes. Specifically, I would suggest the following:
Bun Thit Nuong Cha Gio (Charbroiled Pork & Egg Roll with Vermicelli)
Com Suon Dac Biet Pagolac (House Special Charbroiled Pork Chop on Broken Rice)
Com Suon Tau Hu Ky (Charbroiled Pork Chop & Bean Curd Skin w/​Shrimp on Rice)
Com Chao Tom Thit Nuong (Charbroiled Pork & Shrimp Paste on Rice)
Pretty much all their vermicelli/​broken rice dishes are variations of the same thing, only differing in the type of meat you get, as well as the presence (or lack thereof) of a side item (e.g. egg roll, shrimp paste, etc.). I generally recommend getting pork chop-​based Com Tom dishes over the pork/​beef dishes, as you seem to get a larger meat portion in the process (plus, their pork tastes better than their beef). Always ask for extra fish sauce. If you don’t eat pork, I am going to be frank and advise you to dine somewhere else, because there’s really no point coming to Phở Palace and ordering a non-​pork entrée.
They *used* to offer a wonderful dish called «Com Suon Dai Han» — Korean Baby Ribs on rice (basically a Com Tam dish served with Kalbi short ribs). They apparently stopped serving it sometime ago, for reasons that I cannot clearly recall. Boooooooooooooo!!!
By the way, for only $ 1 more, you can order some soup to accompany a rice dish. Don’t do it. It’s basically a broth without veggies or meat, and it tastes like what warm piss would presumably taste like. (I could not help but recall the memorable scene from Desperado, where the tourist complains to Cheech Marin that the beer at the Tarasco Bar tastes like piss, and his companion replies «that’s because we piss in it!»)
As far as their beverages go, my 3 favorites are the following:
Thai Tea with Tapioca
Suong Sao (Chinese Black Jello in Light Syrup)
Mixed Fruit in Coconut Milk (Thai Dessert)
Be warned, they totally load up the drinks they serve with *massive* amounts of crushed ice. Profit margins are such a bitch …
Their smoothies are excellent, and are served with the option of boba and/​or whipped cream. For those who are wondering, the fruit used in their smoothies are *extremely* fresh (the reason I know this is because I tend to suffer allergic reactions when I consume fresh fruit. The fresher the fruit, the more severe the reaction). I like the strawberry smoothie the most. The mango smoothie is not bad either, but it’s definitely not as good.
Stay away from their Che Ba Mau (2 flavor of bean with jello in light syrup) … it’s somewhat disappointing.
There seem to be two ladies that regularly work here … one is very nice and always has a smile on her face. The other one … not so much. By the way, English is clearly not their first language — so unless you speak Vietnamese, expect the possibility of less than perfect verbal communication with the staff. Particularly for phoning in pick-​up orders … enunciate your words *clearly*, and verify accurate reception of your order. If you don’t do that, you risk ending up with something other than what you wanted (take a guess as to how I know this …).
One thing that seems to have haunted this place are the infamous tongs in the restroom (something a colleague of mine even observed in person). I really don’t know what to say about that, but what I *can* say is that in 8 years of eating here (one of those years maybe 3 – 4 times a week on average), I’ve never gotten sick ONCE. That should count for something.
They don’t seem to have a strictly followed closing time … I’ve seen them start to shut it down as early as a bit after 6, so if you’re thinking of swinging by for dinner, I’d try to knock it out *before* 6.

I’ve been coming to this place for years now. The staff is friendly and they get your food ready almost as soon as you order it. They have free parking which is great because in Chinatown most places don’t have that. They also have some of the best mango boba I’ve ever tried, because they use real fruit.

There are hundreds of Good Phở in Los Angeles. This is one of them. Food is not fresh, broth is not hot enough

Phở is better at Phở 87, but the rice plates are better here… says my Viet coworker who takes me all over China Town for lunch :). I seriously would have no clue about any of these places if it wasn’t for her. I was going to go with the combo rice plate, but instead I ordered the chao tom (shrimp paste wrapped around sugar cane and grilled), charbroiled beef, rice noodle paper that comes with pickled radish/​carrots/​cucumbers, mint, lettuce… and a side of fish sauce. This is one of my favorite dishes. Make sure you mix the chili with the fish sauce. Take a piece of rice/​noodle paper add the chao tom, beef, pickles inside… then wrap the whole thing around lettuce… dip in that sauce. And BOOM you got yourself a Vietnamese masterpiece. Don’t forget to order the 3-​color che (dessert) on the side. Not too crowded, quick service, completely satisfying lunch.
They take credit cards but with a minimum charge of $ 15 so plan accordingly. ALSO there’s a parking garage below; FREE with validation.

We wanted to try something different from our usual luncheons, so since we were planning to shop around Chinatown, we decided to eat here. In the past, I have always walked past this restaurant looking at the display of food pictures posted on the windows. I was really curious and a bit excited once I stepped through the doors.
I ordered the shrimp & crab XL noodle soup. They changed the soup to just SHRIMP ONLY. The crab was too expensive for the restaurant’s budget. The soup had a sweet and sour flavor to it, but the broth was thick! The top layer was full of oil and the shrimp wasn’t fresh. I didn’t want to finish the whole thing because the oil disgusted me. Everyone else ordered vermicelli dishes and chicken noodle soup– needless to say, nobody liked their entrees. The order of spring rolls wasn’t that tasty either. The peanut sauce was bland and the spring rolls only consisted of shrimp, lettuce, and vermicelli that seemed to be missing something.
Anyways, never again.

open super early. i guess you can have phở for breakfast lunch dinner snack whenever! phở all day long. decent prices decent phở. nothing to complain about. service is good. the place is pretty small but most phở places are. not so much of a palace. no complaints here. in vietnamese ordered something not even on the menu. secret phở menu. haha. there is street parking. i believe its $ 15 minimum for credit card purchases. thai ice tea is pretty good. sugar cane is good too. good place to eat before getting on a la to sf bus or even close enough to union station. prefer this over subway.

My to go Vietnamese place in DTLA/​Chinatown. Why? There is easy parking. You can park underground for free with validation. It is easy to get in and out of this place.
I usually get the BUN and my boyfriend gets the rice dishes. The Vietnamese food here will do if you don’t want to make the 1 hour drive to Orange County. It is run by Vietnamese people so the food is authentic.
*This place takes credit card also which is a plus. I believe there is a minimum charge.

My mother suggested the Vietnamese food here is delicious. So I decide to give it a try.
Beef stew with egg noodle– Cooked with chunks of tender beef and beef tendons with carrots and onions.
Dry egg noodle with light seasoned soy sauce .- comes with a small bowl of wonton and BBQ. Pork soup. Choose the thick egg noodle as it will compliment your meal more. ;-P
Thick Rice noodles seafood soup– in clear broth with mixed seafood and rice noodle– a little bland but the seafood makes the soup’s flavor sweet.
Durian shake– is made with frozen Durian and milk. It’s creamy but they could of put more durian in it to make the flavor more bold.
Located outside corner of The Shops shopping center. The only validate for 40 minutes for free in the parking structure. If you’re lucky, you can find street metered parking
They accept credit cards, Yay!