Golden Buddha Vegetarian Restaurant

Super tasty! Weird waitress! towards a new meaning of creating satisfaction in one’s being. Smoothly delicious, share plates.
We waited 15 minutes before they took our order, (which when you are famished, can seem like an eternity) and that is because we came up to the waitress to tell her we were ready. We felt they are understaffed as if the waitress was all three in one: hostess, waitress and cook. Cosmical conundrum afoot in this joint. Pleasantries abound.
But overall it was great food and a fun experience! We recommended to check out!

This place needs to close. I’ve come here before and it was ok but now they are just cutting so many corners. Our spring rolls had only lettuce (rusted) and scant tofu.
Tried to order a couple noodle dishes but they only make chow mien now. Greasy.
Food caused much GI distress.

Just ordered take out from them. Ordered the Spicy Mongolian Chicken and the Spicy Szechuan Pineapple beef. Since there is no delivery service, my wife went to go pick it up. Good thing that it is only a block away! You’ll see why. The food was ready within ten minutes. When she got home I was ready to eat! Problem is, what we had ordered was totally different. We got two beef dishes… I think… and neither one of them of them had pineapple. When we called back, and after having the phone passed around the restaurant to the person that speaks the best English, we were told that they were out of chicken and pineapple. No explanantion for why weren’t we told when we placed the order??? My sweatheart went right back and returned the food and got a refund.
Now I understand why its always empty when I walk by.
You’ve been warned!

My girlfriend and I have been here a few times for dinner. Overall there we have been happy with the food, the numerous vegetarian options, and the service.
Ambiance and service: As mentioned by other reviews, it is fairly quiet inside; the décor is somewhat drab and outdated, but there are photos on the walls and low music playing in the background. Our food came out quickly each time and the server was very friendly (I believe she was the only one working in front and in the kitchen during our visits).
Food: The vegetarian phở, caramelized chicken, potato curry, potato loaf appetizer, and broccoli beef are some dishes that we remember being very flavorful and fresh tasting. A few times there have been some bland dishes (lemon chicken lacked flavor). The smoothies and tea are also good. There are still many dishes we would like to try and will return again.

Everything here is vegetarian except the cockroaches in the food. No joke.
As mentioned by other reviewers we walked in, and I thought we had mistakenly walked into a daycare. I really don’t care for kids in the first place so that was one strike.
Strike two was the spring rolls… They were okay, but what we were served was by no means peanut sauce.
Strike three… Two other tables in the restaurant with customers and it still took 45 mins to get food.
Strike four… The roach in my noodles. I’d been craving some sort of noodle soup dish and this place seemed to fit the bill. I ordered number 31 (can’t remember the name). When it got to the table it looked good. All the tofu and fake meat tasted the same, but whatever. It was still noodles… Until about a quarter of the way thought the dish. Saw what I thought was the end of a bean sprout… Looked a little closer… That sure looks like a leg! A friggin roach! I spit my mouthful of food out and walked out. My friend was left to deal with the aftermath, and it wasn’t much. The woman working there came over and ran the bowl to the back without saying anything.
Never again.
Oh and if I could I’d leave zero stars.

I stopped in Golden Buddha last night. I’ve been here a few times, and it was always satisfactory. However, I’m pretty loathe to go here again now.
The food was all dried out (like it had been sitting around all day and then reheated later) and had a weird aftertaste. Okay, fine, whatever, it was an off day, I guess. But it gets worse.
Let me preface this by saying that I love kids.
The server was watching two little girls. They were running around the restaurant SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS the entire time. There was a couple in the restaurant ordering takeout, and the girls threw menus at them. They kept turning the lights on and off, running in and out the front door, and one of them actually hit me. Twice. Did the server do anything to stop them? Yeah, no, of course not.
Never again.

Longing for some soup on my way home from GG Park, I decided to stop at Golden Buddha (vs. the many other choices on Clement Street). I went here b/​c it’s a vegetarian restaurant and like to give these types of places my business since I am a vegetarian. I ordered take-​out: spring rolls and spicy Vietnamese sweet and sour soup.
When I opened the bag of food when I got home, I thought something wasn’t right: there wasn’t peanut sauce (some other sauce) and the spring rolls only had tofu and lettuce (and thought there were more ingredients). So, I checked the menu online and indeed the spring rolls as described on the menu isn’t what I was served. It’s supposed to be made with lettuce (check) mint leaves (none), cilantro (none), seasoned tofu (yes on the tofu, but it isn’t seasoned). Served with peanut sauce (again, nope). The springs rolls from Trader Joe’s are better.
While the soup isn’t bad, it’s not spicy nor sour — actually somewhat bland. And I had thought it was supposed to have more vegetables so I checked the menu again and here are the ingredients: celery (nope), tomato (yep), pineapple (yep), bean sprouts (nope), cabbage (lots), bamboo shoots (nope) in tamarind and fresh herbs base (I can’t taste the tamarind at all).
The food isn’t bad, I got my food pretty quickly but giving it one star b/​c the food that I ordered isn’t really what I received and that’s just unacceptable.

So I recently visited Golden Buddha with my girlfriend because we were in the neighborhood and wanted to find some vegetarian phở. I will say one star is earned because they did do a good job of making it vegetarian and they did offer phở but only one option. The other star is because of the service. The lady who took our order was nice and the food came out very quickly (less than 5 minute).
Unfortunately I cannot say that beyond those two things the place was worth the visit. Chow Mein, Spring Rolls, and Vegetarian Phở shouldn’t all taste the same. It was hard to distinguish between the three different items that were ordered and the taste was overall unappealing. I may not have ordered the right entrée but would not recommend that anyone go here to experiment with vegetarian Asian Cuisine.

Spring Roll Good. The sesame seeds in sauce are delicious
Eggplant Tofu Curry Clay Pot — delicious
Chow Fun — really good too
Service slow but food came fast after we ordered

Well, there I was in The City and the Hotel that me and my friends were staying at wouldn’t let me check in (bastards).
So with time (and a sizable amount of luggage) on my hands, I did what any self respecting former denizen of the inner Richmond would do (which in my case was drop my crap off at Green Apple and go find something to eat)
I’ll be honest, this is a place I meant to try for years. But its often empty presence, and faux meat selections always put me off. But since I’d gotten lost trying to find KOTN, I figured why not? Tonight’s the night.
Food:
ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT.
I got the Eggplant and Mushroom with Brown Rice, and was happily surprised by a. How well flavored and spiced the dish was and b. the quality of the brown rice (which was excellent)
Atmosphere:
STAFFED BY GHOSTS.
As noted in previous reviews, the ambiance of the Golden Buddha can be a bit on the sterile (and silent) side, however the food’s quite good, and if you’re with that special someone whose conversation is all that matters, and the only décor in the room you’re looking for is getting lost in the depths of their gaze?
Then the Golden Buddha is a fantastic place to eat.
However, if things have been on the skids and you’re desperately trying to keep the fleeting flame of the relationship alive by distracting yourselves with the actions of those around you?
Then I would definitely pick someplace else.

I’m not happy about this place, but I might give them another chance if I was in the neighborhood and hungry.
My spicy potato chicken curry that I asked to be made extra spicy was very bland and included undercooked pieces of potato, onion, peppers, and carrot… plus some of the chunks of tofu were cold. When the server brought it out, I thought «wow! That was fast!» But I soon learned why… they barely cooked it. I wanted to send it back, but the server never came back to check on me, and I was starving!
They didn’t have two of the desserts on the menu so instead we got the chocolate cake which wasn’t on the menu. It turned out to be a mousse pie. It was really good, but I was really craving CAKE which is why I ordered cake, so it didn’t hit the spot.
The service was truly atrocious. We didn’t get water until we ordered, about ten minutes after sitting down… and it was not busy in there. It was our fault for showing up during the server’s mealtime. She ate at a table in the back the entire time we were there, visiting us as few times as possible so as not to upset her stomach. Nice, huh?
The menu is exactly the same as Golden Lotus in Oakland which I love so I imagine some of the dishes must be better than the one I got today. I may go back one day, but not soon.

The family who owns this place a so friendly and attentive.
Spicy prawns and the hot/​sour soup are my favs.
The prices are decent $ 7 – 9 for a main dish.
My favorite ‘asian’ place in SF.

The most expensive restaurant!
Let me explain… I went there the other night with my husband and a friend. We ordered a couple of simple dishes and they were okay. nothing exciting about this place but we went there because it opened at that time of the night, and what could go wrong with a vegan restaurant anyway. After the meal, in the middle of the night, both of us woke up and threw up like crazy, especially my poor hubby who stayed in the bathroom all night! In the morning we started to develop pain in the body and high fever, so we dragged ourselves to see a doctor. It turned out that we had/​are having bacterial & parasite food poisonings that would probably take us a month to get rid of. But surely it already cost us $ 700 for a visit and vitamins! This is why those nasty foods turned out to be the most expensive meal we have ever had!
Recommend? Hell no!!!

If this place weren’t 100% vegan, I’d be giving it 1 star. I love that I can order anything on the menu, and that if I’m just dying for one particular dish that I can go and get it there and not worry about sneaky fish sauce or sly dried shrimp. They have an extensive menu, and that’s great, and I appreciate it.
What’s not great and what I DON“T appreciate is the unreliable quality of the food and the abysmal, ABYSMAL service. I’ve gotten food take out from here several times (at first I didn’t know any better, later I desperate and in denial). Sometimes, it’s been yummy. Never to die for, but certainly happy-​making. Other times it’s been gross. Sour tofu, mysterious tasteless wontons the filling of which had the texture of dry feta cheese, flavorless broth, the list goes on. I really wish this weren’t the case, but I can’t think about eating their food anymore without getting a little sick to my stomach. Major bummer, I know.
Instead of me going into detail about how egregiously poor the service is, just imagine the worst possible service. For example, imagine if you were the only table in the restaurant, and they didn’t refill your water once, or ask how anything was or bring any item out in anything close to a timely fashion, or smile or give any other signal to let you know they did in fact want you there and cared about how your meal went. Yeah… that’s sort of (exactly) what it’s like.
Will I ever order from there again? I really hope not. Knowing me, though, I’m likely to make the same mistake for the 8^th time and end up $ 15 poorer and 15% more annoyed with myself.
p. s. Golden Buddha’s sister restaurant, Golden Era (in the Tenderloin) suffers from none of the same unfortunate deficiencies and is in fact totally tasty and wonderful and delightful. Go there instead!

I am a vegetarian. SO, I want to support any business that supports me.
— Unfortunately, I will probably never come back to this place, unless I am on that side of town and ravenously hungry.
Food :
Vietnamese Crêpe: I thought it was pretty delicious. It comes with an assortment of vegetables and soy meats. It also arrives with lettuce and sauce to wrap the crêpe in. I was thoroughly pleased.
Spicy Noodle Soup with Gluten and Tofu: Full bodied flavor, slightly spicy, and the soy proteins were absolutely delicious. No complaints about this one at all.
But I am going to be honest, the effing San Francisco DMV is more exciting to be at than the Golden Buddha. It was painfully quiet in there, the server was completely glacial, and the single dusty fake flower in the vase was just plain sad.
Good effort Golden Buddha.

Overall passable, but with a few issues. Continuing on my bun crusade through the city, I came here alone out of curiosity one evening and left slightly disappointed.
Vegan Five Spice Bun? I’m all about it and sounds great in theory, however, I was pretty nonplussed by this experience mostly due to the execution.
The «meats» themselves were decent in taste, but had an inexplicable chalkiness about them. The main issue at hand were the hot noodles thrown over what would have been a delicious and crispy bed of herbs and veggies. This rendered my bun bowl into a soggy, warm, mix of herbs and lettuce which was far from pleasant. I ate through most of it, but wasn’t feeling it towards the end and I ended up leaving more than half of it behind.
I’ll give this place the benefit of the doubt and maybe try something else, but I won’t be back for the bun again, that’s for sure.

Let’s be real here. I’m a meat eater, but sometimes I like to branch out of my normal routine just to learn about different foods and challenge my tastebuds. The Golden Buddha on Clement Street is one of two Vietnamese vegetarian restaurants I’ve always been curious about. I’ve read the reviews describing some of the soy and wheat dishes including faux meats, but it’s difficult to understand something unfamiliar without actually trying it.
As is often the case whenever I’ve walked by this restaurant was pretty empty. In fact it was deserted at 2 PM on a Sunday afternoon. Non-​existent crowds don’t scare me off as much as low health scores so I walked in. The gentleman who walked out from the kitchen seemed surprised when I asked if they were open for lunch. Just as I expected he asked me to take a table anywhere I’d like.
As soon as you are seated you might notice the same things I noticed. Beside each table is a paper panel which shows a photo of several farm animals and household pets with a caption similar to «please love us, but don’t eat us». Now I really don’t share that same philosophy, and I think having those panels posted are tacky and might actually hurt their business rather than help it. Also, for a restaurant supposedly serving up cleaner, healthier dishes the glass covered table tops were super sticky, not squeaky clean.
Décor discrepancies out of the way I concentrated more on the huge menu which has a very broad selection of vegan /​vegetarian dishes similar to a regular Vietnamese restaurant. The main menu has good descriptions of all of the dishes unlike their take out menu which gives little or no explanation of what each item is. Being a tofu lover I decided to choose menu items with more familiar ingredients. I ordered the steamed Tay Ho Rolls and the Vermicelli with Five Spice Tofu.
The dishes came out rather quickly starting with my appetizer. The Tay Ho Rolls (
) are steamed rolls made up of glutinous rice flour stuffed with tofu, carrots and mushrooms. The appearance of the rolls was almost gelatinous, but the appearance did not match the actual texture which was slightly hard on the outside but extremely chewy throughout. The mushrooms seemed to be more like assorted fungi but each ingredient seemed to have its own individual flavor which I thought worked very well together. The rolls are served with a mound of fresh bean sprouts, shredded lettuce, mint, cucumbers and carrots topped off with crushed peanuts and sesame seeds.
The Vermicelli with Five Spice Tofu (
) was nothing like the menu described. The menu’s description led me to believe this was a simple Vietnamese bun dish topped with five spice seasoned baked tofu, but in fact it was piled high with faux meats I did not even consider ordering. There was faux beef, faux chicken, faux ham and possibly even faux pork piled up high atop a bed of hot rice vermicelli with fresh bean sprouts, shredded lettuce, mint, cucumber strips and cilantro hidden underneath the noodles. While the faux meats looked very close to the real meat items based on appearance and texture their flavors seemed only to mimic the marinades and spices used to season them. There was no real meat taste in any of the soy and wheat products. I tasted a lot of chile and ginger though which I liked very much.
A complimentary bowl of vegetable stock (
) accompanied my food. Lightly seasoned the piping hot broth contained cabbage, potatoes and peas. I was too full from my main selections to finish the soup however.
Both of my selections were served with a fish sauce containing carrots. I used very little of the sauce though in order to get a truer taste of each dish. Overall, I didn’t have a problem with consuming everything in front of me as I thought both of my selections were very good. The service was kind of lacking especially when it came time to present my check. Having customers wait a long period of time in an empty restaurant for their check is not considered good service. In truth I’d probably suggest the food was a 4 but given the poor service and the questionable décor I can only offer them a rating of 3.

4.5 stars. 03.28.2010:
The ‘thousand layers tofu eggplant’ dish is also delish. Definitely going to get this everytime. Again I’m happily surprised by how good the food is.
03.13.2010:
Finally tried this place (after walking by many times and not going in because of the mediocre Unilocal reviews) and ended up really liking it. The mixed vegetables dish had a huge variety of yummy vegetables, and the sesame tofu eggplant dish is delicious and both went great with our brown rice. The vietnamese coffee (ordered 1 iced and 1 hot) were also good. +1 star for the excellent service — our server was ultra friendly and helpful with all our requests due to dietary restrictions (no salt, no pepper, less oil). She even recommended some food to eat that will be helpful.
Will definitely be back to try the numerous other dishes, like the ‘make your own fish’ dish. A comfortable place to enjoy a tasty meal.

Well, let’s see…
Dishes prepared from fresh, healthy, and nutritious ingredients? CHECK!
No MSG?
CHECK!
Does this place have whole-​wheat yummerific noodles?
CHECK!
We had a nice lunch last week at Golden Buddha! It’s one of the very few places in this area that is100% Vegetarian! Growing up, my brother and I had severe, sometimes life threatening allergies to certain foods, food flavoring additives, and food colorings. I really wish Golden Buddha were around when I was a kid! Now, as part of my training and healthy eating habits, I try to eat vegetarian meals at least 4 – 5 times a week.
The inside to this place is clean and the ceilings are really high. It’s one of the long and narrow middle of the block dining venues that reside all along Clement Street. As with most Vietnamese places, the menu here is HUGE! It’s pretty much most of what you would find in a regular Vietnamese eating place and then some only EVERYTHING is vegetarian! If you’ve never had mock chicken, beef, or lamb then be forewarned, sometimes it’s gonna taste like the real deal and sometimes it’s gonna not!
The Chicken Salad was very tasty. The texture of the mock chicken was «right on» and, overall, it was not too salty. I really liked the Gourmet Vegetable Noodles because they were made with whole-​wheat noodles (refined processed ones can butt BLAST your glycemic index), tons of fresh al dente vegetables, tofu and chicken, and served dry in a med-​large bowl. The Pan Fried Vegetable Chow Fun was very scrumptious since it was made with fresh noodles (stale chow fun noodles realllllllly suck) and delicately flavored. It came with a small bowl of deliciously clear vegetable soup that had refined yet very natural flavors!
Service was A-​OK, but not warm and fuzzy. We look forward to coming back to try many more dishes at Golden Buddha!

Food = good. If you haven’t heard… there is nothing related to meat here! It’s all vegetarian or vegan!
I heard about this place from friends, so I wanted to go.
I had the vietnamese crêpe, which was crispy, slightly sweet, and just curry-​licious. :-) I also ordered the carmelized chicken, which was good, but a bit too sweet for my tastes. The soy chicken was good though. I’m used to the stuff that is ‘breaded’, so this was a nice change from it. Their soy prawns were also good… which I had never tried before.
Service = okay.
Ambiance/​Décor = boring, plain.
My biggest disappointment though, my plate and water glass were dirty… it was gross. I liked the food, and the service was okay, but I was just disturbed by how dirty my plate and glass were, before I even used ‘em!
I haven’t decided if I would go back…