Tan Thanh

Walk down a narrow dark arcade, look opposite the parole office at Inala Civic Centre. If you are still not sure, just listen for trance beats pumping from somewhere within. That is where you will find not an underground dance club, but Brisbane’s supposedly best bowl of phở. Tan Thanh Traditional Vietnamese Restaurant is the place. Located in the central shopping district of Brisbane suburb Inala, is typical in appearance when you enter. Tiled floor, sparse decoration and menu on the walls and full of locals, you have a fair idea of what you are in for.
Being Aussie, I couldn’t help but start with the deep fried spring rolls, pork and vegetable. Crispy outside, soft and tasty inside. Good start.
For the main I just went for the Phở Ga or Chicken Phở. Which is Phở served with a generous piece of chicken maryland chopped and still on the bone. The broth had a great depth of flavour and although eating the big pieces of chicken still on the bone isn’t the classiest of looks, it does add to the chickeny essence. This all equates to a one punch umami attack.
If you find the chicken chopped on the bone not so appealing, try the beef phở. Be warned though, if you order the Phở Tai or Beef Phở Special, the soup comes with the beef already inside the broth and a tad bit overcooked. Normally raw beef should be placed on top, hot broth ladled over just before service. Upside is, if you are a fan of all the chewy tendon and tripe bits, this one is offaly delicious.
All in all not a bad eat and go. Should you still be feeling peckish post-​phở, just outside the arcade is a great little Vietnamese sweets stall setup outside the owners shop. Beside that is Inala Hot Bread where they sell you guessed it, Vietnamese pork rolls. Great rolls, have everything and tick all the boxes. You can have all the toppings on the side instead of in the roll itself. Of course make sure you request this before they make the roll. I saw one lady getting scolded with the F-​word for not telling the young guy serving before he made it. She received another muffled F-​bomb for requesting separate bags for each roll after they had bagged it all up. Hilarious, made my day.

I love coming to this restaurant, cheap, fast service, and good foods.
They have pretty much any Vietnamese dishes that you can order. I had almost everything on the menu from phở to vermicelli dishes and a whole rang of desserts.
It’s worth to try if you love VN foods.

This is very good, very cheap Vietnamese food. I like the menu, it’s clear, has lots of options, and there are many pictures in case you don’t know what something is. They have some things that are hard to get elsewhere, like do-​it-​yourself rice paper rolls.
Prices are great — the two of us ate plenty for $ 23. Most items on the menu are between $ 9.50 and $ 10.50.
It’s busy, but service is still pretty good. One of our dishes took a long time coming out and they came over to apologize and let us know it was on its way.
Don’t forget it’s cash only! And they don’t split bills.

I will not be coming back here. For such a popular spot, the food was terrible and the service wasn’t much better. My friends and I are all Vietnamese so my review may be a bit harsh but we want others to taste quality Vietnamese food and you can definitely find it elsewhere in Brisbane.
When we asked if we could order 5 orders of spring rolls (a standard order comes with 4), our waiter just shook his head with no hesitation. We were kind of taken back by his reply. He didn’t even have the courtesy to say that they don’t make substitutions.
We ordered five dishes to share and they did give us give bowls without fuss. I would say the beef stew (bo kho) was terrible. The photo looked so great and appealing but then when it came out– it was so pretty much all soup with very fatty beef and a few carrots. The onions tasted terrible as well. The bread that came with the order wasn’t toasted. The broth was way too salty and just lacked the hearty beef stew with nice bites of carrots, potatoes, and onions. I would suggest you stay away from this order. My mom’s version would put them to shame.
We ordered banh canh and the noodles were pre-​made. The minute I tasted them I knew that this was not freshly made. The broth was close to water. There should be so much more flavor in these dishes. I think that’s what shocked me so much. How could amazing dishes taste so poorly.
Our third dish was vermencilli with beef and an eggroll. This was OK. Edible but not fabulous. The fish sauce was doctored up with hot chili peppers which were probably the best thing I tasted this entire meal.
Our broken rice dish with grilled pork and ham was OK but they were pretty skimpy on the serving of rice. This was probably the best of five which is not saying much.
The final dish was a seafood clear noodle soup that was the worst. I couldn’t even finish it. The noodles were overcooked and the broth was similar to the banh canh’s but worst.
I’m so sorry to give such a bad review but I can’t have people eating terrible Vietnamese food. Don’t make a trip out here to eat at this place. I will be trying out a few other places so I can have a better feel if this is the true quality of Inala where I was told where «good» Vietnamese food exist.

You can’t go wrong with this cheap, fast Vietnamese restaurant in Inala. My good friend who is Vietnamese assures me this restaurant is as authentic as it gets. She also tells me never to repeat this to her mother. (Don’t worry Kimmy, you’re secret is safe with me!)
I’m not usually a big fan of broken rice dishes but the grilled pork in this dish is so tasty, that I order it every time. Also the DIY rice paper rolls with sugar cane prawns are fantastic and they don’t stimp on the paper rolls either. I’ve also heard that this place does the best phở in Brisbane. I guess I’ll just be making another trip out here next week to put this to the test.