Pho Viet

I will say upfront that this review probably isn’t fair, since I didn’t get to eat there. I have never really had an issue with vegetarian dining at Vietnamese restaurants, between myself and the staff we can usually come up with something, and occasionally something awesome. I saw that they had vegetarian Banh Mi, so I asked the teenager at the counter for a sandwich, and was told they were out. I asked to see the menu and from the back, a woman, who I assumed to be the owner, shouted «Nothing vegetarian there!» I thanked the young girl, nodded to the woman in back, and went down a little further on Buford Highway to Lee’s Bakery for that veggie Banh Mi and soup. Gots to love BuHi!

After Phở Viet, I think I’ve tried just about every phở noodle shop on Buford Highway. The restaurant is located in the same shopping center as Château de Saigon. It’s at the south end of the shopping center. You can’t miss it because «Phở Viet» is displayed in bright red letters above the storefront.
Phở Viet is a small restaurant that also offers a limited selection of Vietnamese desserts, baked goods, and homemade drinks. These come from the small bakery next door that is owned by the same family. While I was eating here, I saw some customers enter the store just to pick up some of these treats. The store also sells baguettes to make your own banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich).
As I do with every new phở restaurant, I ordered the phở dac biet. This is a bowl of combination phở that includes many slices of beef including rare and well done steak, flank, tendon, and tripe. The menu lists it as:
Tai — rare steak
Chin — well done (steak)
Nam — flank steak
Gan — tendon
Sach — tripe
Ve don — crunchy flank
Some restaurants don’t charge extra for dac biet, but Phở Viet does (50 cents extra per bowl). I ordered a medium bowl for $ 5.95. This price is comparable to the other phở restaurants up and down the BuHi, but the size of the bowl was smaller than I anticipated. The quality of noodles and meat were good and the broth was sufficiently fragrant. The sides of basil, culantro, bean sprouts, lime, and jalapenos were fresh.
The restaurant was clean and the service was attentive and friendly. We were served by all four members of the family at some point. While we ate, the kids watched Nickelodeon on the TV mounted near the ceiling. Overall, not a bad place to quell your phở cravings.

Cool little Phở spot located in a strip mall on Buford Hwy — right when the signs go from Spanish to Vietnamese.
A couple of young Vietnamese kids were the servers — couldnt have been more than 15 years old.
Rare beef Phở — it was a basic Vietnamese dish — and it did the job — spring rolls were fantastic.
Would go back — just has mucho competition in Little Saigon.

This little restaurant is easily missed amidst all the fancy lights of the other vendors in the shopping plaza. Not too much effort is made in this restaurant’s appearance. However, never judge a book by its cover, true? The servers are two little young’ns who were watching Nickelodeon when we entered. They seemed very unenthusiastic; I guess it was a lazy Sunday for real. We ordered two medium phở dac biet for 6.95. Their medium bowl is a small by other restaurants’ standards. The broth was cloudy, but not very flavorful. It actually had some yellow undertones to it, which was interesting. Overall, it was ok… not great. It sucks because the owners are so nice.
It’s cool they sell other goodies here as well. The restaurant is actually attached to a bakery. There’s plenty of parking on the side of the shopping center towards the rear as well.
Unilocal 365 #6/​365

As far as their noodle dish… yummmss!!! not as good as Com but better than Phở Dai Loi (which I hate having that lettuce in the bottom of my noodles) The grilled pork was very lean and not fatty like you sometimes get elsewhere. Can’t say much for the phở as I’m not a fan of the star anise like flavor. They are located in the plaza kitty-​corner from the crawfish shack.

While I’m not the world’s biggest phở fan, on days when I want it, I WANT IT. And after twelve too many Jäger shots on Sunday night, Monday was one of those days.
Phở Viet is in the shopping center with Château de Saigon and it’s a homely little place. A little dingy around the edges, for sure, even amongst the usually lackluster décor of tiny phở shops. Our server was super friendly, even complimenting me on my pronunciation: a total dream for an egg like me.
The spring rolls were big and tasty and they were nice enough to bring out two bowls of sauce so we didn’t have to worry about double dipping. The phở was quite nice: a large but not overwhelming size and the broth had great flavor. The meat wasn’t impressive, I much prefer Phở #1 in that regard. Still, it was a solid bowl and definitely hit my phở-​craving spot. Just for research purposes I also ordered up a bubble tea and was not impressed. They were out of my preferred green tea flavor so the thai tea arrived fully blended and with far-​too-​squishy balls. Super sweet as well, more like a milkshake than anything else. Bummer.
Since I only eat phở a few times a year, I want it to be stellar, and for that I’ll head to Phở #1. But this place has Airheads at the cash register… white mystery flavor, heck yes!

Not sure if ownership changed or what, but our experience here just wasn’t the same as earlier in the year.
First, service has gone downhill. Our server wasn’t very friendly and pretty much non-​existent. When we told her we were ready to pay our bill, she acted like we were inconveniencing her (she was reading her mail), and even though she was close to the cash register, she called on her daughter (who was busy playing w/​her brother on the computer) to take care of us.
The restaurant didn’t feel as clean either — it felt sticky & dirty, esp. the bottles of sauce, the booster seat, the tables, etc. We probably should’ve known something was up since we were the only customers in the restaurant.
Broth is still tasty but my friend & I were thinking the portions seem to have gotten smaller, at least compared to other places. I ordered my usual small, and Soomy S ordered a medium for her & her daughter — but contents felt sparser. Stomach agreed b/​c I got hungry again an hour later :(
The one positive thing that hasn’t changed is the wonderful smell of freshly baked bread. If I do come again, I need to try their banh mi and pastries. The pastries really did look good and they’re just $ 1.50 each. The banh mi is $ 2.50.
Overall drop to 2.5 stars.

So this Nordic/​Irish/​German chick I know and I decide we are both long overdue for some good phở. It was cold outside and phở is the perfect food to warm you up. She selected a place and when I got there it was nowhere to be found. Luckily I had my smart phone handy and looked it up on Unilocal only to discover it only had one review from some dude named «Kit» and it was from two years ago. Conclusion? Most likely closed.
So I call up the chick and tell her the place does not exist. She claims she is almost there. I wait for a bit and she shows up and we decide to go to her second choice, Phở Viet.
We arrive and no one else is inside. We check the hours and we are there 45 minutes before closing and it is phở so we decide we are okay. Once we are in everyone is friendly and we are seated and given menus. Chick gets the shrimp phở as always. I order the one with everything but no white onions or tripe. She claims I never said I wanted a large which does not sound like an error I would make. Regardless of what happened, she got served a large and I got a medium.
She laughed at me while I silently pouted but since I am already obese enough, I decided not to say anything and eat my medium. While we were eating some random people walked in then out a minute later. The lady came over after and told us that these guys had been coming in every now and then asking for money. Who begs a business for money? Stop targeting friendly phở places for your schemes asshats.
Chick takes her time to finish, probably to rub it in that she got the large. She offers me her extra soup even though she knew full well I just wanted more meat. Afterwards they bring us some small cake dessert. Chick cannot have gluten and I cannot have lactose so we have a bit of a problem as neither of us want to be rude when they were being extra nice by giving it to us on the house which no other phở place I have been to has ever done. I tell her she needs to eat the frosting and I will eat the cake. It works well for the first layer but then they get all mixed in together. She hatches a brilliant scheme to hide the remaining cake in a napkin to dispose later.
The phở itself was very good and the soup had great flavor, I just wish I had had more of it. It was a very good treat on a cold night though:)

In my book, the best phở in Atlanta. Really good broth, large portions, and fresh collection of basil, sprouts, lime, and jalapenos (not always a given, believe it or not). The service is quick and friendly. The menu is actually pretty large, and they have great «entrée» dishes. The marinated pork (bun tom thit nuong) over vermicelli is also the best I’ve ever had. It’s extremely well-​seasoned and tender. Iced coffee and boba smoothies are awesome too, if you’re trying to go all out…
5 stars, without a doubt– as good as it gets.

The restaurant looks very clean and new, but the waitress Paula told me they have been opened for 2 yrs. I went here with Kit F. and we started off with the egg rolls, which was very good, filled with ground pork and carrots, deep friend to a crisp. Kit ordered the small bowl of Phở with everything in it, and I ordered the Bun Bo Hue, which is a spicy Noodle soup with slices of beef, pork, and congealed blood cubes (it can be optional if you don’t like it). The soup for my Noodle was pretty good, but they did add stuff that is not in the traditional style of this noodle soup, but it didn’t deter from the overall dish. Service was slow, especially since we were the only customer, but maybe it’s because it is family run. It took Kit almost being done with his meal to get his syrup strawberry shake. The shake was syruped fake strawberry, super sweet, and alittle on the non-​shake side, more like strawberry Quick!
When we were done with our meal, we stepped next door to the bakery. The next door bakery is also owned by the same people, and when we came it, alot of stuff were sold out, so I assume there breads are very good.