Saigon Rendez-Vous Restaurant

OK, I’m going to be generous here because this place has been around forever and I know it has a loyal following. Every time I’ve been there, there are a couple things that have struck me about this restaurant. The first is that the restaurant is not up-​to-​date, the booths are worn, the paint on the walls is chipped and peeling, and the bathroom is dark, small and smells damp. Secondly, the food is not that great, it takes a long time to arrive at the table, it is cooked in a microwave, and is passable at best. The prices on the menu do not reflect the quality of the food on your plate, aka rent prices.
Today there was someone who lost their wallet rummaging around the restaurant and being a general nuisance. Before I was even done eating my meal the waitstaff came up to me and said ‘you must pay now because I am leaving’. I know it is important for servers to get paid but this is really ridiculous behavior for a two dollar tip.
Even though this place is super close to work, and I want to support local business, I will not be going back anytime soon.

wow we sat down and were greeted by the owner who was going off on a tangent about how someone had come in a week ago left with out paying for a $ 2 pot of tea then also left her purse. She called the family and… ect ect .long story short the woman had left after tea because the place is filthy and you know what lady «YOUR PLACE IS FILTHY NOW! «yes it is your soup is good. As she complained about the way she was so terribly abused by a stranger to her «i have doctors and politicians come eat here» on and on through the whole meel… that we could barely choke down because where we sat the entire wall behind us was sprayed with food… she is defending the cleanliness of her place while my hands are sticking to the condiment bottles and I am quivering… if you walked in there today and looked to the right? the entire wall of restaurant needs is splattered pictures and all with food .it makes no sense this could be resolved with some time and attention .and a good scrub down… turn the lights on and put your glasses on and stop making your customers feel uncomfortable because that is what happened we felt intimidated and uncomfortable as we were raged to about someone else’s issue …
I am sorry but it is filthy and you spitting on our food as you talk to us about something that does not have anything to do with us??? …well that does not help…
there are just too many options in town to be treated to this event? what happened I remember it being good back in the day? honestly the place is bad and to have to pay for bad? she is going to read this and if you go there to eat? she will rant to you we wrote it I betcha .
sorry the days of Saigon Rendez-​Vous for lunch are long gone… I left with a bad case of heartburn. never to return

Vegetarian sweet & sour pork tasted old & freeze dried. Service was Sloooowww! Won’t be coming back.

Not too bad. Waitress/​owner seemed to warm up to us after we sat down. Ice coffee was great. I had the Phở Ga (chicken) and wife had the leaf tray teriyaki. Mind you, my wife is Vietnamese and thought it was «OK», My wife will give EVERY Vietnamese place the benefit of the doubt, but we were not all that crazy about it, but we will come back for another try. The owner was very nice to us and that’s most important.

Come for the slow service, stay for the bizarre combination of flavors in the food.
My phở tai tasted like sweet cinnamon toast. Not in a good way.
My friend and I bonded with the couple at the next table over how incredibly awkward the service was and the odd flavors.
«I ordered pad Thai» she said.
«Good luck with that.» I said.
Oh, how we laughed.
When someone you’ve never met before takes a bite of her pad Thai and gives you a look like «can you believe this?» … that’s pretty epically bad. She said it was overly sweet like Kool-​aid.
Bleh.
On the other hand, my friend’s spinach chicken something or other was good and there was enough for both of us.
And they took my unsatisfactory Cinnamon Toast Phở off of our bill. So I have to give them credit for at least trying to make it right.
And if you view the experience as performance art instead of expecting actual competent dining service, you will enjoy this place a lot more.

My husband and I headed out for lunch at about 210pm and did not get ours food until 4pm. Upon arrival of said foods, my dish was cold. Like, forgot about leftovers on the counter cold. And his phở bland and lukewarm. Very upsetting and thirty dollars. I dont think we will be returning.

We really like the wonton soup — it’s filled with veggies. We’ve tried a bunch of wonton all around town and this is our go to.

The veggie spring rolls are yummy and the service is awesome. Very nice people who make the dining experience comfortable and pleasant

I haven’t been to Saigon in many years, and after my experience tonight, don’t foresee myself going back anytime soon. Had a friend in town, and tried to go to Naria, but they’re closed on Monday, so we went around the block and wound up at SR. Food wasn’t hot, soup had about six tablespoons of pepper in a teacup, almond chicken was tough as shoe leather, and we couldn’t make out the odd floor cleaner taste in the pudding thick gravy. Overall it was disappointing to say the least. I’ve had better at Panda Express…

Been going here since I was literally in the womb. Best place ever, I’m seriously in love with it. Order the egg rolls! They’re unlike any other I’ve ever had and I’m very picky with egg rolls because of this place. I also reccomend the teriyaki beef on a stick appetizer! An entrée fave is 45A which is a rice noodle chicken stir fry type meal:) the tea is great, atmosphere calm, service above and beyond and if I lived closed I would definitely come here more often.

I and my partner sat down next to the window for a romantic evening. The service took forever to bring us the menus or even acknowledge our presence. Then the owner came out and asked us to order our food immediately. We ordered the Phad Thai, a dish that’s almost impossible to mess up. It was so salty I could taste anything but the salt. Before we were even finished eating, the owner came back with the bill and demanded I pay immediately. I commented that it seemed she did not want our business, and she said she did want our business. After I paid, she turned the lights off while we were still at the table eating. This was 2 hours before closing.
Does this restaurant discriminate against gay couples? Or are they just universally terrible to all their customers?

Three stars may be stretching it. When I entered the restaurant, the server – who is probably also the owner – waved her arm expansively and told me to sit anywhere I wanted. Then she realized that all of the tables were dirty. Oh well, they must have had a busy lunch rush. I started with a Vietnamese coffee that was a lot larger and not as sweet as I’m used to. No biggy. The meatball soup was just okay. Then I moved on to a pork bánh mi. Compared to the one I had yesterday at Nom Nom (just around the corner), this was much better. It was crammed with fresh veggies, and the first couple of bites were great — until I hit the pork. It tasted like it had been cooked in teriyaki sauce. Either that or soy sauce and sugar. It totally overpowered the pork and was cloyingly sweet. It’s too bad, because the rest of the sandwich was great. My goal this year is to try and hit all of the small restaurants that I’ve never been to in the brewery city. I may or may not go back to Saigon Rendes-​Vous. I’ve only been there once, so I should give it another shot. Right now, I’m not feeling too enthusiastic.

Awesome vegan food. Two pages of vegan options. I had the vegan almond chicken 4 times in one week while I was visiting Olympia! Yes, the owner can be bitchy and there were a bunch of fruit flies but I’ll tolerate it for decent vegan food.

I had the Teriyaki Chicken Vietnamese banh mi sandwich and ordered the Teriyaki Chicken meal for my son, both to go.
The sandwich bread baguette was very dry, almost stale with an overload of mayo– ate half of the sandwich but could not tolerate anymore.
The teriyaki chicken was disgusting. The meat was very old– you could tell by the texture and and taste. Even my 4 year old son rejected it and he loves chicken.
What a waste of $$,…never again.

Ive been back several times since they changed owners. Food is not as good as it was when they first re opened. Might give it another try, but this one is about to come off my list of go to places.

Service and food were great! I live on the Westside of Oly and good Phở is hard to come by! Of course, they have more than just Phở, but that’s what brought me in. Can’t wait to expand my palette next time I’m there!
Everyone should try this place!

The food here was incredible. We had wonton soup and two Bahn mis: one charbroiled pork and one Chinese sausage. The wonton soup was packed with perfectly al dente vegetables and had surprising and delicious spices. The meat in the Bahn Mis was perfectly cooked and flavored.
Unfortunately, they lose a star for service. It took 15 minutes to get water and wonton soup, even though we asked for it right when we sat down. And we could clearly see a table that had sat after us (with a larger party and the same server) was already getting food by the time we got our water. The waitress (and possibly owner?) seemed to care less about us, and acted especially put out when we ordered sandwiches and asked to do the mulch special since we had already ordered soup. Honestly… it was the same soup that came with the special, so had we seen the special immediately we would’ve done that anyway.
It wasn’t until we were into our sandwiches that the waitress finally stopped and attempted pleasantries with us. Not enough, however, to make up for the serious service fail in the first half of our experience.

Only thing open when we were craving phở to cure a hangover. Pretty bland phở (compared to Seattle area rich broths). My boyfriends had a fruit fly in it. Thai Iced Teas were just milk… Kinda spendy for phở too (~$ 10 bowl).
Also, the manager kept returning to our table to ask us why no one else was in the restaurant or where other tables had gone or how we had found out about the restaurant. She kept returning to tell us where everyone was from… No locals in the restaurant? Bad sign.
Very vegetarian friendly but still would probably not return.

Excellent food — — lousy service. I really wish I could give this restaurant five stars because the food was wonderful and I know from reading other reviews that they have had a stellar past and are known as a vegetarian friendly restaurant. Unfortunately our waitress ruined the experience completely. She was very rude and condescending.
She took our order and at that point everything was fine. But when our order came, we realized our son’s food had chicken in it — and we had ordered the vegetarian version. I thought it must have been a mistake because I remembered her saying it back to me when I originally ordered it, so I asked if his plate was still on the way because we had ordered a vegetarian noodle dish. She told me I hadn’t said that.
I told her that I did remember saying so, but that it was fine, the food was out and we would just make do with what we had and pick out the meat from his dish. Then she said, «No, I will put in another order. But you didn’t ask me that before!» And she took away the dish — visually annoyed. I heard her telling the staff in the back that I hadn’t said I wanted a vegetarian dish and now they had to do the order all over again. It made me feel very uneasy but I didn’t want my son to feel bad, so I just let him have some plain rice with soy sauce in the meantime and kept my mouth shut.
When his dish came out she brought it to our table but was still tense. She looked at me with her arms crossed and said, «I don’t believe that he is a vegetarian and you eat meat. That is unusual!» If she had said this with a tone of curiosity and friendly banter, it would have been different. But she said it in a way that sounded like she was accusing me of lying. At this point I was very offended to be questioned again, but I still answered and told her that my son cares about animals. Then she shook her head and said, «No. That just doesn’t seem right. Very unusual that he doesn’t eat meat if you do…»
Ok — so now I’m seriously offended and shocked because this restaurant is known to be vegetarian /​kid-​friendly. So far this is far from what I expected. I don’t understand why I should have to defend my son’s eating choices in a restaurant that is known for its vegetarian menu? And worse yet, why is this woman making me feel like I am untrustworthy or wrong?
The food was excellent, but there is no way I would ever eat in that restaurant again after the way that waitress made me feel. I may order it for take out if I had to.

Oh maaaaaaaaan! This place is GOOD! I first went last year after coworkers told me about all the fake meat dishes they had. I really liked the veggie almond chicken and the veggie teriyaki beef. I liked sitting there on my lunch break — service was fast and it was quiet; I could read a book and look out the window.
Then the food started making me feel weird when I ate it. Kind of sick. I stopped going.
I heard they were closing and re-​opening «under new management,» and cynical me, I thought it was just a ploy to get more customers. It wasn’t until I saw the reviews on Unilocal explaining that it was the ORIGINAL owners coming back to save the place that I thought I would give it a try.
I am so glad I did! We went last night and ordered all our old favorites, veggie almond chicken and veggie wonton soup. It was soooo good. Not just «better,» but good on it’s own. The wonton soup had big chunks of broccoli and bok choy and even some crazy caramelized shallot action; the almonds on top of the almond chicken were toasted and flavorful. The new owners were super nice and really wanted to make sure that everything was okay, and even offered more rice if we needed it! I often do run out of rice so I appreciated the gesture, even though I was too full from our massive ordering spree to finish.
Check this place out. They are making really good food and I want my favorite lunch break spot to stay around!!!