Vietnamese Soy Cafe

Affordable, healthy, tasty.
Jicama Rolls are good.
Soy milk is good.
Price is good.
The soy milk was definitely up to par because my mom used to squeeze her own homemade fresh soymilk for us when we were kids. The benefits of soy are amazing lol. High protein, fill you up and its low fat low cal. Drink up if you are on the go and need protein but have no time for a sit down meal. Its juice from soy beans… for heaven’s sake, it does a body good!
Viet food is overall the best because it’s healthy and full of vegis. I love the combination of sweet tangy and sour in their sauce. Don’t be scared to try their sauces. Its usually watery because it is homemade. Ingredients are vinegar, sugar, peppers, salt, stuff like that, but it is ingenious. The food usually isn’t complete without the dipping sauce. Its an integral part of the dish. Oyster sauce sounds scary but its bomb. I don’t think there really are oysters in it… its like a different sweeten tangy version of soy sauce.
Vietnamese food is great for those that are gluten allergic or lactose intolerant. They have a good amount of vegetarian dishes too because obviously Buddhism is an integral part of their culture. Buddhist monks don’t eat meat.
Try this place or any other place and pass along a review!
Namaste and many blessings,
Lena

How could I possibly go wrong with this place? A little hole in the wall, with only two things on the menu, Banh Mi and Phở. Surely a place that serves only two things must be experts at making them, right?
Wrong.
I dearly love me some phở, and I’m sick of driving to K-​town to get it. So I was delighted when this place opened. And I sat down at the tiny counter and ordered me some.
Unlike the conventional beef phở, they have chicken and shrimp. Terrific, a chance to expand my horizons. I went with shrimp.
I got a big bowl of insipid, flavorless broth. Not enough noodles, and hardly any vegetation. Boring as hell.
Well, clearly the Banh Mi must be the star here, so I wnt back and ordered one.
First off, the bread is excellent. A real baguette, toasted nicely. But… uh. where’s the beef? At one point I cracked my sandwich open to make sure that I hadn’t ordered a vegetarian sandwich by mistake. Nope. It was visible to the eye, tucked under the mountain of carrots, but it was cleverly concealed to the pallette. In fact, so was damn near everything. It was bland and tasteless. I compensated by dumping a bunch of Sriracha on it.
And its small. Small enough where I was still hungry, but not enough for another meal.
Also, five bucks for a banh mi? In the Viet places in SGV they go for a buck or two. Add the smallness and the blandness, and I won’t give them a third chance.
I seriously think this place is riding on its hipster hole in the wall appearance.

AHH I’ve come back to this hidden joint– full on with Cash and an Appetite. Been craaaaving the Bahn Mi Sandwiches b/​c its just so freaking delicious. I’ll eat half and save the rest for later. This is an amazing idea.
The kitchen guy is so nice, he’ll split the Phở Ga into 2 bowls for my gf and I… hence we limit our carb intake, but we’re still completely full from the soup.
BUT GODDDAMN ARE THEY EVER FULLY STOCKED? Last time, they didnt have anything on the menu but like 2 things. then this time, they didnt have Coconut water (for my hangover) and I resorted to «mint tea»
Still, I really like this place. Even though their sandwiches is Double what u pay ($ 5)— everything about it is just worth it.

What an adorable place! Very small but a very clean, cute setting. We had the soy nuggets and several of the vegetarian banh mi’s and everything tasted great, thanks to this trusty brown hoisin-​ish dipping sauce they had. It was literally good on everything. The owner is super friendly and that made it an especially great experience. They seem so receptive to feedback — let’s hope they make a vegetarian phở soon!
CASH ONLY

Great bahn mi. Just great. And not too big. The perfect mid-​day snack. I love their phở, though it’s untraditional, but the broth is great, hints of ginger and teeming with pepper.
They’ve expanded their menu and hours. With a lotta choices for Vietnamese in the Silver Lake/​Los Feliz area, this should be at the top of your list.
Oh, and as a very cheap person, their prices are far below market. Cheap food! Yah!

I saw this place about 6 months ago while driving home, and apparently it has been here for quite some time– totally inconspicuous! (Either that, or everyone’s always just riding my ass down Hyperion at 50mph and not giving me a chance to enjoy the scenery.) At any rate, any restaurant with the word «soy» in it always grabs my attention, so I did a little research and finally made my way here.
The lemongrass soy chicken banh mi (with vegenaise upon request– yum!) was a delicious substitute for Mandoline Grill’s famous tofu banh mi. I’d have to say that the bread here was actually much fresher, warmer, and deliciously toastier than Mandoline Grill, though the sandwich was overall not as flavorful but pretty damn close. It’s not a massive sandwich, but it is large enough to fill you up and doesn’t leave you feeling like a total glut afterward.
A delicious sandwich for $ 5.50 (tax included) that’s ready to go in about 5 minutes? A solid four star rating in my book! Can’t wait to go back and try the other items on their menu.

Tiny doesn’t really express how small and hard to find this little place is.
The first time my girlfriend and I decided to give this little place a try, based on the reviews here on Unilocal,we walked right up to the front of the place and saw NO sign that the place existed. I mean, we were excited to try the yummy bahn mi ga praised so highly by all that found the place. But while we stood on the sidewalk, in front of a worn down building, on a street not sporting much else in either direction that we could see… we looked again at the building, then at each other, then we ran for our cars. We just assumed the place went out of business or Unilocal got the address wrong (I was once sent to a pizza place that Unilocal apparently said was in the middle of an apartment complex — it wasn’t, the pizza place was on the same named street and address, but in a different state). As we later found out, the place had VERY restricted hours, like open 3 hours a day, or something close to that, and closed on the weekends.
Well, since the Vietnamese Soy Café was purported to exist at the bottom of the hill on which I live, I decided to give it one more attempt while walking my dog and I am VERY happy I tried.
The Bahn Mi Ga is delicious, as advertised! I’m not a huge cilantro fan, but everything just works right with this sandwich, and I find myself happily chomping down every morsel, even the cilantro. Since my first visit here I have been back numerous times. I love that they have this one tiny two seat table on the sidewalk in front. It’s a perfect stop for me and Bailey during our walks.
And don’t forget to try the vegetarian spring rolls. They are definitely «the bomb». The shrimp egg rolls are good too, but the veggy rolls rule. And if it’s a hot day, definitely get the Iced Mint Tea, they brew it fresh, and it’s perfect with the meal.
As I’ve said in other reviews, I LOVE finding the good little hole in the walls… And this DEFINITELY qualifies.
Jz.

Fine for the sandwiches. Their only cooking utensil is a toaster after all. Not the best banh mi, not the worst either. Just not a whole lot of meat in a $ 5.50 sandwich. In fact, hardly any meat. Plenty of bread, sauce, herbs and carrots though.
I suspect the idiots who are giving this place 5 stars would be happy paying for a $ 10 peanut butter and jelly sandwich if they were told its imported peanut butter, artisanal jam and served on a nice plate.

I live two blocks from this place and somehow only recently learned on its existence. I credit this to the fact that it is tiny and not very noticeable when driving by in a car.
I have now eaten here two lunches in a row and I am completely obsessed with these sandwiches. I have had the ham, the chicken and the sardine and all three were total winners and for five bucks a piece, it’s the best sandwich value in Los Angeles.
The place is tiny and the owner is very friendly. It’s cash only, which is sort of annoying, but there is a liquor store around the corner that has an ATM.
One super important thing to know: the sandwiches are meant to be eaten immediately, as the quality of the baguette is at its peak just after being toasted. If you take the sandwich to go and then eat it later it will still be delicious, but not as much as if you ate them at the counter in the shop.
So yeah, go to this place eat there, love it. My only real complaint is that it isn’t open 24 hours so I could get a sardine sandwich at 2am. Oh well.

This place is all right. Not amazing and not bad. We ordered over the phone and there was definitely some confusion on their end. We asked for a tofu/​mushroom bahn mi and a lemongrass soy beef bahn mi. What we ended up with was the tofu/​mush bahn mi, a soy milk, and a lemongrass chicken bahn mi. My boyfriend never wants to make trouble so he didn’t say anything.
The sandwiches really seemed so-​so compared to other Vietnamese sandwiches I’ve had. They were not amazing like I remembered from other places. They tasted good but seemed like they had less stuff on them and way too much sauce. Like they were trying to make up for not enough toppings by drenching it in mayo like stuff. Vegans beware, right? I probably wouldn’t go back here again unless I was feeling super lazy and wanted to walk to get bahn mi. Even then, I’d probably just wait for Wednesday to roll around so I could get Mandoline Grill. Their bahn mi is amazing.

As a non-​meat eater, this place is the best it gets for Bahn Mi. They have 3 vegetarian options — Tofu, Veggie Ham, and Veggie Beef. And their rolls are amazing too! I’ve had all of them numerous times and keep wanting to come back for more.
These are great for picnics or nights out at the bowl, but are best fresh when the bread is still crunchy. The owner is really nice and friendly, always offering us free drinks!
A perfect little hole-​in-​a-​wall with quality veggie Vietnamese sandwiches!

Well Nicole M, you make me wanna be a vegetarian! LOL. Also, a little Hater-​o-​Rade never hurt anyone.
Tap’d this spot today and I seriously thought that this place an empty room. It looked closed at 11:30 and as we walked in, i found a quaint little jewel in the heart of Silverlake.
My bud Chinese D was my SL tour guide and we caught up with girl talk while having the #12 and #13 from the menu.
Great price for a 10-​inch baguette viet sandwich ($ 5). Place was empty so it felt pretty cool to enjoy the spot alone. Otherwise, we would have been like sardines in the tiny seating area.
Owner was not there but the cook was super cool and very friendly. Que Pasa Paisano! Clean and prompt service and Yes, I would go again.
Not good for gang-​bangs since there is only space for 5 – 6 people from what I can remember. More people than that and you will need to form a line out the door (That’s soo Houston 500… tacky).
Next time I will try the coffee and really feel like a contract girl!
Keep on Unilocaling

A tiny little gem of a place, Vietnamese soy café does not disappoint.
The sweet staff makes it feel very personal, like you are dining at a friends house.
I ordered the chicken and my friend the ham. The chicken had a sauce on it so fantastic I didnt want to waste what was left on my face by wiping with a napkin.
The coffee with homemade soy milk was fantastic and i loved chewing the little pieces of sesame.
Perfect for a quick, easy, delicious meal.

I’m a huge fan of Bánh Mì and this place was fantastic! It’s small, and if you didn’t know it was there, you might miss this little piece of heaven, as I did for the last year that I lived in the area. Absolutely fantastic food. I had the Bánh Mì Ga (chicken). If you’ve never had a Vietnamese sandwich, stop what you’re doing RIGHT NOW and get over there!
The employee (or maybe owner) was incredibly friendly and helpful. The food was done within 5 mins, and the quality was perfection. I can’t believe this gem went unnoticed by me for so long. This is my new regular spot!
Cheers!

I don’t want to sound like I drank a glass of hater-​aid but I have to wonder if people just give this place good reviews because its a hole in the wall and they feel cool for being in the know?
I got the vegetarian Banh Mi with tofu and mushrooms. Strike 1 — there was mayo on the sandwich and they didn’t list that on the menu. The sandwich was greasy with way too much sauce. It wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t great. I’ve had better.
Thumbs up for the ambiance though. You do feel like you’re in someone’s kitchen.

What a great little find — thanks again, Unilocal!My visiting relatives were hankerin’ for a light lunch — particularly banh mi. Luckily I found Vietnamese Soy Café — it fit my criteria: local, cheap and with decent Unilocal reviews.
The Café is really a café — small and cozy. It was empty when we got there so our orders were taken right away. We didn’t wait too long for our lemongrass chicken banh mi sandwiches and beef stew to arrive. All was delicious! I understand that a lot of banh mi sandwiches are usually served on huge rolls — I liked these bc they weren’t intimidating. They were flavorful, juicy and the perfect size and had no jalapeños — yay!
We were all happy with our orders and I’ll definitely be coming back for more banh mi!

MAN!
this place is so great. it’s tiny, it’s clean, it’s warm and inviting and mellow. the food is reasonably priced and REALLY good. i have tried all of their different banh mi sandwiches except for the vegan one, but i’d have to say that they’re all amazing. my personal favorite is the one with the pâté on it. but the tofu one is also excellent. their vietnamese iced coffees are nice and strong, too.

Stopped in quickly for to see what the fuss was about. I totally appreciate some vegetarian action, and am a fan of places that can cater to that taste.
We had such a nice lunch there, we shared an appetizer of spring rolls and a yummy yummy yummy vegan sandwich. The spring rolls were not a large helping, but they were one of those foodstuffs wherein every single little flavor calls out to you. It was food you close your eyes to fully appreciate, involuntarily.
I must say too, the owner/​gentleman working there (not sure if he’s the owner) was very passionate about his ingredients, and was concerned that we have a good meal. It felt very special. And he was really really nice to talk to.
The faux meat ruled so much. I will be back.
For you veggies out there: not everything on the menu is vegetarian, so be careful! I had assumed that when it said chicken or pork that it was soy chicken or some such thing, but that is not the case, so be careful (the name is a bit misleading that way)…
For you meat eaters, I’m willing to bet those sandwiches are amazing.
The bread itself was somehow astounding, just the perfect texture.
Two happy people left lunch fed well and down only $ 10. Total.
Yeah!

newly re-​opened with a slightly limited menu.
for those non-​locals, stay away.
just kidding.
for those non-​locals, this is the restaurant that was the prototype for viet noodle bar in atwater.
good, creative vietnamese food. not cheap. not expensive.
you go try.

This is one of my favorite places of everywhere I’ve traveled and lived. Viet is passionate about the soy bean! He learned how to make tofu in Vietnam and brought it to Silver Lake. Viet looked a little like Che in the famous Korda photo when he wears his cap when he had longer hair.
He’s the owner making your bahn mi (vietnamese sandwich: shitake & tofu, lemon grass chicken, and my two favorites, green onion sardine and dill & tumeric white fish) or bu’n (fresh rice noodle: dill & tumeric white fish and soy skin and mushroom).
Or adding that extra dash of rum to your vietnamese iced coffee. Yes, rum. The C-​shot (cayenne, sugar cane, and lemon will clear you head, if not momentarily, your mind). Then there’s the home made and organic soy milk: original, chai, cinnamon, mint and yerba mate.
Since it’s almost Hollywood Bowl, time, you can take the drinks to go as an icy pouch drink!
The side orders such as the jicama fresh roll and soy nugs (which are flavorful and spicy) with the peanut dipping sauce are delicious. You can have a meal of just side orders.
What I appreciate about the café is it’s simplicity but balance of flavors. If Viet has time, he will tell you about how he tries to acheive a balance of flavors in what he prepares and the properties of the ingredients.
It’s also a space to show case art. Once the café had Andrew Ward’s photograpy. When the café just opened, there was a mural of a mother nursing her child which was replaced by a charcoal drawing of a child in traditional costume.
Cash only and street parking. Don’t try to run across the street or you may be flattened like rice paper!
11÷5÷07 Update
Viet will be opening his new and larger restaurant in Atwater on November 25^th. aptly named «Viet.» The café will remain open just for lunch.