My Canh

Yep pretty dirty and bland sums it up. The only plus is that their papaya salad is quite good (though you can’t really mess that up). Their eggrolls were immediately soggy and bland. They also did my pet peeve btw… which is not washing the tops of cans. It grosses me out to see the dirt in the corners of the can and I’m expected to sip that. Just needs a quick rinse and you’re good.
I feel bad though because the old couple is very nice and very sweet. They also speak good English btw.

I can pretty much describe the food here with one word.BLAND. Ordered bun bo hue that basically tasted like water. I put in an insane amount of hot sauce and it still came out tasting like… water. My friend ordered an order of spring rolls and egg rolls to share. The spring rolls were decent but the egg rolls were off. C’mon, if you mess up egg rolls, you really just shouldn’t be in the food business.
This is a place to avoid because it was like throwing money away. As we were leaving my friend said, «I want to go to yack up the food so I can eat somewhere else» haha I know exactly what he meant.

Even though I’m Vietnamese, I’m very nitpicky about the Vietnamese restaurants and places that I try out, usually for the service and how sanitary the place is. This was on the worse end of he spectrum, I’m sorry to say. This is the first one-​star review I’ve given, too!
I went to this place because my aunt was craving some shellfish © while strolling through Phuoc Loc Tho /​Asian Garden Mall.
The service was awful. There was a woman who was walking around the area and at the «entrance» trying to get people to try out the restaurant and all. We were swayed by it and decided to take a seat. Before we even fully looked through the menu, she was already back at our table asking if we had decided. We weren’t and politely asked her to give us some time. She came back shortly thereafter and scribbled down our orders.
We ordered two servings of bánh bèo, a type of rice cake that has some seasoning on top (according to Wikipedia, it’s literally «water fern cake») and some shellfish. Once the former came out, it actually looked pretty nice. Not bad. The taste was mediocre, though, compared to what I’ve had. The shellfish only came to us later after we had reminded the waiters. Even then, we received a very small portion of shellfish — about 6 – 7 pieces for $ 5. Yikes. I didn’t have any, but they certainly didn’t look that great.
Something else that got me was the fact that there was not a little napkin dispenser at our table. At any of the tables. We had to ask the waiter to get us some. In addition, we lacked eating utensils and ended up snagging some from other tables.
Altogether, I just wasn’t satisfied. I mean, if anything, the bánh bèo was decent, which is where the single star comes from. I mean them well as they’re trying to survive as a business (they weren’t as successful as the other restaurant/​to-​go places in the area), but they definitely need some help if they want to compete with the others.

I had the #18 and spring rolls which both tasted decent. The sugar cane juice was alright.

I was originally looking for Phở 79. I saw a sign for it in this plaza but couldn’t figure out where it was.
Not having much time left for lunch, I wandered in this place and picked the closest one.
This place was really, rearry, not clean. As far as dirty, it wasn’t that, but let’s just say that I used the straw on my water glass. I hate using straws, not just because of the environmental waste created, but to preserve my masculinity.
Straws are not macho, and neither am I, I don’t want to push myself into the feminine realm.
I ordered the dac biet phở #18. The phở was like other types of phở that I’ve had. I didn’t taste any MSG, though i’m not consistent with my detection. The part that I really liked was the various shapes of mystery meats that were floating around in the clear, lightly oiled, broth. They resembled ground pork, ribs and beef.
Pretty decent tasting.
The serving size was perfect, and I didn’t gorge myself, a common problem I’ve developed since I started all this Unilocaling.
A good find. Parking lot is small, lots of little shops for your taste If you don’t want phở, they serve, you guessed it, Vietnamese food! Bring cash, of course.