Pho Kim

For a quick fix this place will do but don’t go there for quality or quantity. The noodles were not fully cooked. The basil is homegrown which is ok but the basil leaves were eaten away and full of bug holes. Poor customer service.

The lady who is the owner or maybe the manager is very rude, she doesn’t know the meaning of customer service! If it wasn’t for the Older gentlemen who is very nice i wouldn’t give this place any star.
Me and a friend were sitting in the middle long table which could sit 8 people. Asked nicely if we can be seated on the table that became available and which is more private and less noisy. the lady ignored us, so i ask for the second time. she refused to let us move and then she went a head sat three people in that table which i politely ask to be seated. So I got up and asked her whats her reason she can’t move us? she said it for four people! while theres only two of use sitting on a table that can sit 8 people! which i told her then we left. Im not about to eat at a place where you can’t be accommodated, when u nicely ask and waited for a better table! just bad customer service period!

If u like phở u will like this place… Small but good phở house. I go here all the time and it has been good everytime

I’ll go to this place purely out of convenience becuase I stay a block away. If i’m really craving Vietnamese food, there are ofther places in the area I will consider first. The food is really not bad, but it’s a little pricey for the amount of food you get. Sure I could save money on gas, but i’d still rather drive 10 minutes away then walk here in 2.

This food is delicious! I can’t get enough of the vegetable soup (egg noodles), egg rolls, and shrimp. The soup is so good i literally dream about it. They put love in their food because its just sooo good.
If you don’t like the food here there is something wrong with you. If you don’t want to sit get it to-​go. The new owners and staff are very friendly. I am more than happy to give them my business. Thank you Thank you for opening in Hayward and being so reasonably priced.
I wish you guys a happy new year and a very prosperous 2011.

I stopped by Phở Kim a few days ago, after the Hayward Farmer’s Market. I had a reading assignment to do for one of my classes, and the idea of reading while enjoying a hot bowl of phở was very appealing to me. I went in, sat at a table alone and ordered an iced Vietnamese coffee, which I had never had before, and a bowl of phở ga (chicken noodle soup– a la Vietnamese style!)
This is a medium sized family run business in downtown Hayward. Apparently the restaurant was just taken over by new owners. The guy who was the server there was really friendly and took a lot of pride in the authenticity of the food at their restaurant. «It is JUST like the food in Vietnam.»
I thought the restaurant was nice, although the décor was very simple and somewhat austere. The people working there, though, were very nice and warm, so it made my lunch experience there very enjoyable.
The phở was pretty good. I’ve had phở that I thought was better, but the phở at Phở Kim is pretty solid. They use good quality cuts of chicken, which is very important to me. As for the Vietnamese coffee, I did not care for it. It tasted like nescafe instant coffee made with water and condensed milk. I can see how others might like it, but I don’t think I’ll be ordering it again.
I would definitely recommend Phở Kim if you are in Hayward and looking for a place that serves healthy lunch, especially if it’s cold or gloomy outside. There is nothing like a hot bowl of phở on a cold, rainy day!

I work next door to this restaurant and have eaten here a few times. Their sandwiches are delicious. I love how the sandwiches are very flavorful and the bread is very soft. Though the price has gone up by a dollar or so, but its worth it.
The new owners are very friendly and attentive. The only downside to this place is sometimes they run out of certain products. For example, I came in for a can of soy bean drink and they ran out. But aside from that this place is a good place to eat Phở if you don’t live in the San Jose area.

WORSE place ever to get your phở fix. The service sucked ass. I felt bad for the pre-​teen waitress.
Not worth a long review. Just trust me… you’ll be disappointed.

«Did you like it?»
«No this place kinda sucks»
«Yeah I felt like I just ate a plate of sadness»
When you’re having that sort of conversation with a friend after eating at a restaurant, you know its bad. Oh man I can’t believe how bad this restaurant was. Normally I’m pretty tolerant when it comes to food, but this place throws all that tolerance out the window.
I ordered bun and my friend ordered phở. My bun was terrible. The meat was burnt. Like, literally burnt. What the hell. Even I can cook a piece of meat and not burn it. And to have the audacity to serve it to me when its clearly burnt? Or wait, did they mean to burn it? Who told them that eating charcoal is good. Ughh terrible. The egg rolls that came with the bun were inedible also. These actually looked normal, but they tasted rotten. The noodles were way hard also. My friend also complained that his phở had no taste at all, and that it was pretty small.
The restaurant itself is pretty bad also. It was very dimly lit at night, so I could barely even see what i was eating. Also, they left the door open. It was freezing cold outside, and the open door made it freezing cold inside as well. My friend went and closed it, and a few minutes later, the waiter opened it back up again. C’mon guys, it’d be nice to eat my plate of charcoal without getting sick in the process.
Whatever though, only been here once, and its going to stay that way. I really do enjoy phở, and to be honest, with most phở places, I can barely tell the difference in their dishes. But for a phở place to stand out like this is unthinkable. Definitely would not suggest coming to this place. Especially with the quality of other phở places in the area.

wow, this place is bad, don’t eat there. I don’t think I’ve ever given a place one star, here we go.
1) Food. Terrible. I orded a chicken dish. The chicken was all dark meat and I could don’t ever recognize the meat as being chicken. At first I thought it was burned pork, but it tasted like burned chicken. I orded an order of spring rolls. First, instead of including fresh mint, they put in lettuce, they are obviously trying to save costs. The chicken in the spring rolls was very fatty and chewy
2) Service is ok. The place is owned by a family and they have kids taking orders from the customers. This doesn’t seem like a professional way to run a business. I tried to talk to the owners after my terrible meal to discuss why I was unhappy and the kids had to translate my frustration to them. They didn’t seem to even care that I was unhappy about my meal.
I live in downtown Hayward and try to support the local establishments, but this place is off my list completely. If you want better quality vietnamese food, I suggest walking two blocks to Le Paradis.

I agree that the service is terrible, the kids who took our order totally screwed it up, but that would be forgivable, if the food was OK.
Unfortunaltely it was not.
The only bad Phở I’ve ever had.
The «chicken» was unrecognizable, nasty, fatty.
The soup itself was bland and flavorless.
Lousy. Inedible.
The chicken fried rice was horrid.
Frozen peas, carrots, corn (CORN?!). Chicken was fatty, nasty.
I predict this place will be out of business within six months.
The absolute worst.

I love Phở! & this place was one of the worst places to go! I’m not over exaggerating either.
First off, I brought a friend that has never had Vietnamese food in her life. so I thought lets try something new for you as she was weary of the place before we even sat down. The place looked clean there was about 2 or 3 other couples there. The service was basically a 10 year old maybe she could have been 11; the menu oOo the presentation of the menu was so low budget there were pen marks all over the menu scratched items out and hand written items in?
FOOD: we split a beef sandwich, which was actually pretty good. Our meals came out I ordered a number 40 which was vermiceli noodles, beef, and egg rolls my friend ordered the pork chop, wings, egg roll rice place (she actually had them replace the pork chop with grilled chicken, which was pretty nice of them to do)… The food was decent it wasn’t the best Vietnamese but it sure in heck ended up to be the worst! The beef was basically half cut with a lot of fat still attached to it. I honestly kind of struggled to eat it. we were just finishing up when I dug in to the last couple of bites of food when I began to chew I bit down onto a huge PEBBLE/​ROCK, I chipped the hell out of my back top muller (s)! When I asked the server (kid) to talk to a manager or a supervisor she stated that no one was there, which again was quiet fustrating. I asked for a card, number a contact something. still they had no answer; the girl finally gave me a cell phone number to contact a JOHN, when I called it the number I began to hear a ringing in the back of the store. The girl quickly comes out and says that John left his phone there. what a surprise!
I HAVE NEVER been so DISSATISFIED with a restaurant like I was on July 5^th!!! I am actually filling a complaint with the City of Hayward

Got the fried rice. It was small, and expensive and bland!

I’m a frequent customer to this place and I’m a big fan of it. They put lots of meat in the phở unlike other places that tends to just give you a giant bowl of broth. A large bowl is a large bowl with tons of noodles and meat, not just soup.
The service is… well, it’s interesting. There’s these two guys that always used to be there Thursdays at 5pm. They would be blasting Vietnamese pop music when I walk in. That’s a minus. Then they asked me if I was Vietnamese and when I told them I was Chinese, they said that was cool because we both have our generals in crystal coffins preserved for all eternity. That was interesting. They also gave me a free Vietnamese coffee because I’m a brother. That’s a plus.
Haven’t seen those guys in a while now though and… yeah, I don’t know how much longer that place is gonna stay in business.

While in search for another phở place nearby which probably closed down (there’s no way we could’ve walked back and forth and not find it), we found Phở Kim.
The waitress seemed very pleased to see us walk in, probably from the surprise of business in this barren area. I find it interesting that there can be a movie theater nearby but really the renovation of downtown Hayward still leaves it fairly empty. If revitalization will ever occur, I hope the quality of restaurants will begin to change as well.
I had a large breakfast so I wanted to get something to half eat and half take back with me. I got the vermicelli with grilled pork and eggrolls, quite standard and hard to mess up. Unfortunately the meat was too charred and the eggrolls were falling apart after being fried. On a high note, I will take into consideration that my dad really liked his seafood noodle soup.
Service isn’t exactly top notch so you might come across the wrong dishes on your table, a missing water, or a check that is yet to come.

Food — 2 stars
Service — 0 stars
Pet Friendly — no
If you want to eat at Phở Kim, you better come soon because I doubt they will be in business much longer.
Hubby and I were the only paying customers on a Sunday night. We both had phở that I would describe as salty bath water at best. Beef was thick and chewy — so not like the phở tai I order elsewhere. We had to put tons of condiments into the bowls to make the phở taste like something.
We shared an order of spring rolls. Shrimp were not deveined — yuck. Sauce was decent.
Here’s the rub with Phở Kim — service. You would think that service would be decent if we were the only paying customers, but no. It seemed like every family member grabbed a plate and served us everything at one time — drinks, phở, spring rolls, water and pearl drink. Then they disappeared behind a screen for the next 45 minutes We had to walk up to the register to get our check. Someone peeked around the screen and handed us the bill. No refills, nada. They don’t take credit cards, either.
The other pisser was two bratty kids running around the restaurant. I guess they belong to the owner family. The little girl was holding the front door not letting her brother inside so he proceeded to yell and karate kick the door. Lovely. We moved into the quieter section and guess who followed??? It was so loud and chaotic… beyond belief since we were the only customers.
I used to feel sorry to see Phở Kim devoid of customers but they’re getting what they deserve. Hopefully a restaurant with decent food and service will move into that space soon.

In a sea of downtown Hayward’s franchise-​heavy lunch options (e.g., Subway, Panda Express, La Salsa, etc), I was delighted to find some decent ethnic food. Phở Kim delivered.
Fresh ingredients, good broth, and a choice of rice or egg noodles. Two minor concerns: it’s cash only (inconvenient) and the servers aren’t fluent in English.
UPDATE: This cash-​only thing is really screwing me up. I’ve had a phở craving a few times this week but had no cash on me so I didn’t eat here. If they accepted credit cards I would patronize this business much more!

Went here yesterday with the wife and little girl.
first off… annoying that someone there doesn’t speak decent english. Please please… learn to communicate with your clientele… it goes a long ways.
I ordered a medium bowl of phở and it was goodly sized. Probably a large at another location and it was full of all kinda of good stuff… so much so that I couldn’t REALLY sort out the meat from the noodles in the clean way that I usually like to.
My wife ordered a rice plate with all kinds of good stuff on there too… a good portion… keep it up.
The bill was very reasonable for what we ordered… I’ll gladly go back… and knowing that they are relatively close is good too.

Ok! lets get things straight! I LOVE PHO! but ummmmm, this place in my opinion is just ‘average’. The food has all the classic flavors and consistency anyone can ask for from a classic Vietnamese restaurant. The only reason why I gave this place 3 stars is because of the décor and the «average factor». Our orders were also wrong, but they were fast on correcting it.
With so many Phở restaurants in the Bay Area, I believe one needs to make a lasting first impression on their costumers and establish a unique niche; whatever that is…
What I like about this place is the restaurants name «PHO KIM»! now please say is fast… phở kim… phở kim… YES! lol
I’ll give this place a second chance the next time I’m in Hayward. They just opened this year and I’m always in support of new businesses. I really hope they do well in this bad economy, just because they’re located in a area where other businesses are closing…
so until then…
~Chia («cheers»)

I have tried the place a handful of times. Stick with the typical Vietnamese stuff, phở, rice, and vermicelli, you’ll be fine. I wouldn’t order boba tea there, since there isnt enough business volume to keep the pearls fresh. Go to Tapiocca Express for that.
Thai ice tea and coffee are pretty good. The food is authentic. The service is OK for a family run business.