Cafe Window

Always come here with the guys after a long day of work. The service is pretty good for a place like this. I don’t drink so I does’t help the cause. Besides the loud music and the crowd. The fried rice is amazing… If you have not tried the fried chicken, try that too.

It’s a place where you can sing alot of vietnamese music and drink… but also has very good food… the house special fried rice is awesome .just be careful don’t bump into the wrong guys and you will have fun.

The food here is high culinary quality. Regardless of what we order, be it the conch cooked with wine, or the fish egg fried rice, etc. Everything was perfect in taste, temperature, presentation, texture, quality. You just dont get these flavors in any Vietnamese restaurant.
Its not 5 stars because it attracts a certain clientel. The place can be smoky, and its patrons loud. Its basically a bar with excellent food. The place is small and needs more seating.
Given the quality of the food, I can overlook everything else. Its just that good.

The bad: if you can’t handle cigarette smoke, don’t even think about coming here.
The good: Waitresses are hot and very attentive!
The great: Their bar food (as long as you know what to order) is delish. The fried rice with masago (caviar) was tasty! Our group loved the hot pot with clams (it had a nice, spicy kick to it).
The contrarian: Screw the karaōke room, and belt out your lungs on the public stage! (it’s not like there’s alot of room for embarrassment, as the place has fairly limited seating).

Get food to go as always. Except thus time ordered prawn and got golf shrimp.
Not going back after this.

So here we go Café Window, your typical quan nhau aka in english, vietnamese bar/​lounge with fun foods. Unfortunately, no five star review for this spot. However, they will still receive 4 stars. The food was fantastic, the waitresses are very prompt and will consistently check up on you. It may seem annoying to some but it for a good reason. They want to clear the tables off so you have space and always bring you more drinks. You must get their fried rice and thai Hot pot, it is amazing.
Here is why I cannot give café window a full 5. Our waitresses are beautiful as most late night vietnamese waitresses in the area. They do need some conditioning in the strength area. We had 3 girls and each one struggled to carry plates. A few of ours spilled. Also if you don’t speak vietnamese well good luck! There might be only one in there that can understand English. Bathrooms are disgusting.
Again not a bad place to bring your friends to hang out, karaōke, drink and have a good time.

Love their Fried Chicken feet, Oc Canada, and Crab Fried Rice!

The food here is great! Love their house special fried rice, escargots, and all your typical nhau food. Good place to bring a group of friends. NOT a place to bring someone on a one on one date. The music is so loud, once in a while they’d have ppl come up and sing. That may or may not be a good thing :/​the vibe gets pretty intimidating. I went with my boyfriend on a Saturday night dinner. All we can hear was the group next to us getting drunk and talking out of their ass. It wasn’t very pleasant, but we enjoyed our food none the less. The next time I’m craving their food ill remember to order take out instead

Going to give it a 3 star. Reason being, waitress had forgotten about us in the corner section up front had to wave her down 4 times that night, our propane to our hot pot ran out 5 minutes into receiving our food… no refills… atmosphere was a little muggy, food was not on point… aroma was there but flavor was not.
Considering the fact that I use to be a regular here years ago, the scenery hasn’t changed and their restroom is still the size of my shoe closet.

This dive bar has awesome food

It’s a Vietnamese drinking bar– quan nhau (if you’re Vietnamese). It might be a bit sketchy in the area but the food is decent. We went here on a GNO one night because we love hot pot and I had been on the search for coconut snails and some friends pointed me to this place.
Hot pot– they give you lots of food and broth wasn’t bad. It had a tom yum flavor to it.
Coconut snails– all my gfs who never had it (which was everyone there besides me) loved it and really like the flavor. My opinion? I DISLIKED IT. Seriously, after being spoiled with coconut snails from quan nhaus and restaurants in California where they get it right every time, I was pretty sad. I couldn’t even eat more than two snails. It just lacked so much flavor. SO SAD. My search for coconut snails is still going…
My gfs were excited to see hot vit lon (balut, fertilized duck embryo that is boiled and eaten in the shell) on the menu since they had been craving so they ordered that. They thoroughly enjoyed that. For me, I just can’t do it. CAN’T. I’ll take their word for it.
The special fried ricee!!! That was pretty darn good. So good, we ordered another one. Yup.
Oh and a Hennessy Privilege bottle is only $ 150 here. Perfect for us 6 ladies.

Talking about food alone here. These Viet places are taking bar food to a whole other level. Forget gastropub, welcome to the streets of Vietnam! In my travels over there, one of my favorite things was that the clubs would have restaurants inside them! Think that but this is not a club but more of a karaōke joint. A run down looking one at that.
Ok, food. Fried rice and hot pot is where it is at. We had a couple other things but those stood out most. Don’t think the hot pot is as good as Vibe’s but they do have a selection of a couple different broths. I love the Thai flavored broths and this one does not disappoint. Has a nice tang and rich flavor to it. Portion sizes are decent as well. If you like hot pot, you should definitely try here.

This is the only Vietnamese Karaōke bar/​lounge I’ve been to. It was recently, a friend’s friend had a birthday and we visited her. She had the big room. From what I understand there is only one room. She said her room rate was 350 or 450?
Fairly high, but it’s a sizable room.
While her and our other friend stayed in the room a while and had maybe more shots than anticipated with the birthday crew, I stayed in the main room.
I spotted a friend in the crowd. I sat and was offered a screwdriver… or three. lol.
I told my friend I had never been and he said it was his favorite spot, much like how Genji is mine. He likes it because he feels the audio is more geared to make the singers sound better .
(That and he feels really comfortable here– much like my sentiment toward Genji)
They did sound good, but IDK– I feel it was bc the singers were better quality, vs drunk girls at birthday parties (like at Genji)
.There is a small stage, that’s well lit *but not blinding* and everyone sings on stage. So there is no passing of mics. You get up when you hear your music pop up.
My friend wanted me to sing so I asked how do I go about this. He said, ‘Just write a song down and I’ll give it to them.’ My song didn’t come on for a while (like two screwdrivers a while– and I sip slow).
There is no way to figure out where I am in the list (BC IDK where the list Was). So I then asked, how do I know if my song is coming up or if they don’t have it.
‘Oh, if they don’t have it they’ll just skip it and not tell you.‘
SO yea. if you want to sing, and you don’t speak Vietnamese or have a Vietnamese speaking friend to check– I’d skip. Also, the menu is in Vietnamese. So if you can’t read, it’s not useful. Food was mid/​high range *from what I remember*.
I had a sip of the hot pot broth birthday girl had– it was delicious, but I have no idea what it was on the menu lol. Also the menu has a ton of stuff on it, so it takes a while to go through, but it’s always nice to have options, isn’t it?
Sure you could ask the waitresses, but it’s pretty busy. I’d feel bad being the tourist asking a billion questions and then not ordering anything.
Staff seems nice, is bilingual (I believe the waitstaff is bilingual). There were two waitresses taking care of the joint when I was there. I was at a four top. There was another 4-​top, maybe two 6-​tops and a continually growing table to my right, at the back of the joint right by the door– idk maybe 10+, plus the room of maybe 6 girls.
It seems like it’s always quite busy, so if you like a place that’s lively– it’s lively.
Oh you can clearly tell who the waitstaff is, they wore matching outfits that day.
The parking lot is a bit dodgy looking, but it’s HUGE. there is no way you will not find parking.
Why 3 stars vs 4?
I like it, but without a Vietnamese speaking friend, I can’t realistically see myself coming here on a regular basis or see myself coming here outside of reasons like birthdays and such. Especially the– if they don’t have it they’ll skip it (and not let you know) :/​That’s like a girl waiting for her lover traveling outside the country with promises of him coming back for her.

Been here with a few friends. This much-​hyped place was rather disappointing.
We shared various dishes:
— hot pot: didn’t try it, looked ok but nothing to die for.
— fried chicken feet: extremely salty, dry, and chewy.
— chicken wings: peppery. Decent, but a far cry from other Asian wings like San Tung in San Francisco.
— fried rice: very good. But it’s just your typical fried rice with added squid and fish roes.
The place is overcrowded, loud, and people are allowed to smoke. Plus, karaōke starts going on after 9 and so please say «adieux» to making any conversation.
I feel like this place — while keeping the negative aspects on a busy eatery in South Vietnam — failed in many other aspects. Will not be back.

Whenever i’m in town I drop by window café. Best combination of music/​atmosphere/​FOOD Vietnamese style !
Staff is friendly & QSC speakers create crisp audio.

Great menu with daring and safe options! Great place to hang out with your friends or have a party at! I could close my eyes and pick something off the menu and be sure that the food would be delicious!

Don’t expect a family dinner here. This is strictly drinking food (Nhau), and it’s AWESOME. My favorite are: Friend rice (the one with the mini fish eggs in them), Chicken salad (goi ga), Duck hotpot? (lau vit). Didn’t stay long enough for the karaōke but the food is definitely top notch. Will definitely be back next time visiting Houston.

I boost this place up a star because the food here is the best of all the quan nhau I’ve been to. It’s really hard to resist when there’s all these delicious dishes sitting right in front of your face.
I hate liquor but I can really down the Martel XO. No hangover the next day, which is a plus!
Waitresses constantly come in and out of the room to check on us and clear the table of finished dishes.
Sadly this place is still small, the restrooms are still dirty, and they don’t have a lot of songs that I like to sing. I’m tired of singing «F*ck It» by Eemon so if they update their music list, clean the restroom, and make this a little bit bigger, this place will definitely get 5 stars from me!

Um, best food ever? Hate going there because they make me fat? It’s TRUE! Go check it out. Go with your Vietnamese friends.

Finally Bellaire has gotten around to combining drink, food, and karaōke, with an acceptable ambiance, oh yeah. I was drooling over their menu which included many rare authentic Vietnamese dishes such as goat curry, fertilized duck eggs, and quail eggs. You don’t usually see these types of dishes in a restaurant. Sadly, since I had dinner already, I chose the slightly healthier chicken salad.
The key ingredients of my salad are chicken and Vietnamese coriander, one of my favorite herbs. The salad is then filled out with onions, red bell pepper, chili pepper, scallions, cilantro, chives, fried onions and crushed peanuts. It comes already tossed in vinaigrette, which consists of vinegar, sugar, and pepper. Café Window used the freshest ingredients in perfect ratios.
The food takes a long time to prepare but you can pass the time drinking, watching sports on their many TVs, listening to music or karaōke if someone puts in a request. The wait can be enjoyable and is definitely worth it. They have the basic selection of beer, and a variety of liquor if that’s what you prefer.
Another thing that stands out about this little Vietnamese karaōke joint is the service. They are attentive and most of the staff speak English, well. They have as many English songs as Vietnamese. However their menu is only in Vietnamese and the patrons are of course, 99.9% Vietnamese. It would probably help to come with someone who knows the language if you don’t yourself.