Pho Saigon Pearl

The drinks are great but the food is just terrible never coming again. Me and my girlfriend went to eat there and had a choice to eat panda or at phở and I made the wrong choice

I ordered #19 phở noodle soup and spring rolls. I enjoyed it. The small bowl is plenty and the spring rolls were fresh.

I frequent the Alton Pkwy location often, with my woman. and have had nothing but good food and great service. As we decided to go about visiting the Spectrum a bit one night, we make the decision to try this location.
As in line with the Alton Pkwy location, this place is just as good.
I like the Rare Steak and Brisket, sometime I do Filet Mignon. The only thing I took note of, in comparison to their other location, the staff seemed preoccupied in their own conversation and had us wait quite a while before tending to us – even with us being the only people there besides another table of two.

A change of pace brought us to Phở Saigon Pearl for lunch. Hot day + cold noodles = happiness!
Seated quickly.
Nice selection on the menu.
Ordered swiftly.
Kept the water flowing.
Prices were reasonable.
I order vermicelli wherever I go. I just love that grilled chicken/​cold noodle/​veggie combo. I have to say that I was a tiny bit disappointed that it lacked a bit of flavor. I stared down at my bowl and tried to put my finger on it… perhaps it was the fish sauce lacking that bit of sweet? Or maybe it was the need for more basil and veggies? I ended up squirting a bunch of Sriracha and Hoisin to give the dish a bit of a boost. I think it also ended up making the noodles a bit more starchy.
The chicken comes flat on a skewer. One problem… no knife! No knife, no problem! I was up for a challenge! I shredded those suckers with my fork and spoon. Optimal? Not quite. I prefer the restaurant to do the work in cutting up my meat and laying it in a pretty pattern on the top of my noodles.
Not sure if I’ll give this place another try. Maybe I was just having a bad noodle day…

His review: I like it. The Vietnamese iced coffee is the
.
Her review: We first tried their Diamond Jamboree location and very much disliked it, so we were hesitant to try this location when it opened at the Spectrum, but we thought we’d give it another try. Best decision ever! This is my favorite phở spot around. Their rice noodles have the best texture and consistency, and they have a pretty good variety of different phos to choose from. While a little pricier than spots in Westminster/​Fountain Valley, I don’t mind paying more for the clean broth that isn’t laced with MSG. They have patio and indoor seating; we prefer the patio since it seems roomier and they turn on those outdoor heaters if it gets chilly.

I guess if you’re new to the Asian food scene and don’t really know what great Phở tastes like, then this place is decent. The broth to me is a little bland. I also ordered the Spring Rolls (over priced) that came w/​the peanut sauce. The sauce didn’t really taste all too great (preference) and was little oily.
Would I come here on the regular for a bowl of phở? Prob. Not.
3 stars bc they gave pretty decent service and the place seems pretty cleanly.

This review is only for the boba smoothie …
Just like everyone else here in Socal, i’ve jumped on the boba bandwagon. It seems everytime i venture out i will get on Unilocal,to look for the closest boba location. Tonight it lead me here.
The location itself is in a beautiful spot at the Spectrum. They have plenty of seating inside and wonderful /​clean seating outside. As i walked up to the counter to order my boba, i noticed everyone was enjoying bowls of phở… but not 1 boba on a table.
Is that a bad sign?
The waiter gave me the menu to choose from & i chose mango. Paid $ 4.86. Smoothie is $ 4.00 and 0.50 for add. Waited about 10 minutes and off i went with my pretty boba… ;)
First sip… Not especially happy
Second sip… VERY thick & weird powder after taste
Third sip. … boba is soft and chewy & good
Fourth sip… back to weird powder after taste left in my mouth & not very fruity.
Fifth sip… after shaking & stirring it up for a few minutes of the shake… Big sip… then to the trash can.
I just couldn’t get past the powder flavor & the bland of the mango smoothie. The boba was good but not good enough to drink the rest. I understand that this is more of a restaurant then a boba shop, so their not going to have a huge selection, but if they offer it … the quality & taste still should be tasty… right?
NO MORE BOBA FOR ME HERE… THANK YOU.

I got vegan phở. Didn’t taste like phở at all… had a cinamon flavor. Was so flaming hot we couldn’t touch it without hot pads (to go order).
Nice décor.

Very bland and selling just coz located in the mall… We took the chicken phở and bun Cha with charboiled pork… Both were pretty average… The pork sausages did not look charred from anywhere… Perhaps they were in a hurry…
We have had way better Vietnamese food at other places… Having a disappointing meal on a Saturday evening is so sad. Taking our business elsewhere next time!

Ok– 3 stars? Why so harsh? Well it’s really not. A 5 star is for perfection– think Michelin star.
This place has really good phở,.awesome sandwiches and all around great food.
The things it lacks is,…close the doors add a/​c in the summer and close the goshdarnit doors and add heat in the winter. I mean,… Wtf! When it’s windy and 40 outside,… It’s 44 inside.
The other thing is basic communication and basic understanding/​comprehending what you say or speak or ask for something.
Walking away during the conversation to avoid dealing with your lack of understanding does NOT make things better.
I am glad you live/​work here,…
I am overjoyed to meet new people — really. I understand that English sucks BBDB sometimes,…
But a smile goes a long way as does listening and understanding.
I have watched restaurants die slow painful deaths because staff won’t or can’t try very hard. People will overlook terrible service for spectacular food. But that means the food has to be spectacular. But you do not want to get stuck having a «just making it Resturant». You will cut corners and cut quality to try and make up the difference and you will increase your prices. It’s the law of making a profit,…
It’s a cute shop. Super coo! Tasty food. Great food quality,… And I will ever be happy to update this to a 4,… But teach table staff to smile,. Say hello,…or welcome,…and suggest your most wonderful dish you are serving today. It is good business and it’s a possible add-​on sale for every ticket!
Keep up the good work,…lets just improve a bit more.

I have not been at the Spectrum for awhile. Had medicine this morning and feeling hungry as I have not eaten yet. I did not notice this place last time I was here. It looks nice, clean, well decorated, and appeared to be well kept from the exterior. It has that nice pleasant dining appearance. So with that appearances, I expected that they would at least place similar emphasis on the quality and presentation of their foods. This is not supposed to be some fast Vietnamese food joint where you load up on foods to fix your hunger. But that’s what it was. For what I ordered, I could have gotten them in Westminster, CA smack in the middle of little Saigon for half the price and probably taste better too.
I ordered special phở in small bowl. I ordered grilled pork with rice kid size for my boy. I ordered soy milk to be in plastic up with no ice for my boy. I also ordered pennyworth drink for myself.
The drinks came out first. Because I ordered no ice for the soy milk, they gave us the cup with slightly above half filled with soy milk. It was not even a large cup. It was just so pathetic. The receipt said it cost $ 3.00 so that would mean if I had it fill up with milk, that would cost me an additional $ 3.00 for the milk? The pennyworth drink has way too much syrup/​sugar as it was too sweet and just killed the nutritious value of the pennyworth.
My son’s meal came out first and it came with fish sauce. My son does not eat fish sauce as is so I ate his lettuce dipped in the fish sauce. THe fish sauce is watered down meant to cater to westernize tongue. In fact, there is not much of «fish sauce» in it at all. He could not finish his meal all so I had it packed to go and ate it outside as we were strolling out and about. Even so he did not finish them. So I finished them for him and realized that they gave him grilled beef as opposed to grilled pork as I ordered. I checked the receipt and sure enough, it said grilled beef. If they ran out of pork, then they should just let us know before switching the order. By the time my boy came home, he chow down two (2) peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a bunch of other knick knacks at home. So I guess he was hungry after all but just did not like the foods at this place.
My phở came last. I do not even know how and where to start. It was lukewarm. The noodles were jammed packed stuck together like a ball literally took up all the spaces in the bowl. I had to literally use my chopstick, one in each hand and separate the noodles. MOst of the beef were fine cook very well done almost petrified to death. I do not know how to cook. But I swear, if I go to regular American grocery store, buy myself a can of beef broth and some beef bones, and boiled them together for an hour or so, I could make myself a better beef broth than this. The only thing that is special about phở is the broth if you do it right. Otherwise, as for the other ingredients, anyone can make and/​or buy them at the grocery store. I swear I was starving but from the presentation of the noodle, I was full. In fact, I did not even eat much of it.
While we were eating, one of the staffs bought foods somewhere outside and appeared to be tacos, brought it into the restaurant, sat a few seats from where we were sitting, and ate them. There is nothing wrong with eating outside foods. It would be boring to eat the same Vietnamese foods everyday. But considering the appearance that they conveyed, it is just to show you that even they do not even eat their own restaurant foods inside their own restaurants. That is just bad image! There are plenty of seats just outside the restaurants for the general public. They demonstrated no class.
I read negative reviews about this place on here, they sounded spot on. I eat a lot of Vietnamese foods so I have some idea where they are coming from even though I did not eat most of the dishes here. I do believe that management level from this restaurant actually read these reviews. I stumbled over one review that management actually responded but it was a good review. You would think that management would make some efforts to correct /​improve these negative reviews but apparently not.
While we were leaving, we passed by this place and by now, it was lunch time. I looked inside and it has a good lunch crowd and I am guessing from nearby business and work environments. Most of these patrons appeared to be westerners. If this restaurant opened smack in the middle of little Saigon in Westminster, CA, it would not survive long. But because of the foot traffics of different type of patrons here at Irvine Spectrum, it would probably last. Would I go to this restaurant again? hm… all I can say is only if no other restaurants open at Irvine Spectrum when I am there. Even so, there is a good probably of 99.99% chance that I skip ordering phở all together.

This was going to be a 4 star review but raw chicken is inexcusable.
I was going to write how good the broth was. My second piece of chicken had a weird texture. I checked and there it was… raw chicken.
The only reason why I gave 2 stars was because the servers were nice enough to get me another bowl and were apologetic. But the second bowl tasted like water which says they’re inconsistent.
I’m lucky I didn’t get sick!

Phở dat… after a nice night of trick or treating with the family, our oldest one who is 6 wanted phở. Checked Unilocal around the Irvine area and low and behold there was one opened passed 9pm (closes at 11pm). Service was phoing slow, food was phoing bland (got the Phở Dac Biet and Tai Nam plus egg roll and café sua da). Phở shouldn’t be that tough to make… and for almost 10.00 a big bowl (9.95 to be exact)…I say phở this place, and pick a different phoing place… after the phoing bland food, I had to ask for the phoing check… once the phoing check came out, I had to walk up to the cashier and give her the phoing payment… I left this place saying to myself, phoing A… why o why did I try this phoing place. Can’t wait for this to be the phoing ROTD!

This place was exactly A-​OK. Hubby, mother and I came here for a late-​ish dinner one evening after she got done with her allotted hour at Dave & Buster’s half-​price Wednesdays. The place wasn’t busy since it was mid-​week and 45 minutes from closing. However, we were quickly seated.
Service was pretty good although the guy who seated us almost seemed like he wished we didn’t walk in. He was obviously already doing his close-​day stuff (refilling sauces, etc.). However, he did warm up to us later. Another guy was pretty cheery and actually said «you’re welcome» to our «thank you’s». Food came quickly… very quickly. It helped there were only a couple other parties in the restaurant.
Food…we all got large phở noodles. Taste was average good though the portions were, I’d say, a little bigger than usual. Prices are also a few nickels higher than anywhere else but I’m sure they pay high rent at the Irvine Spectrum. Mom got a large combo — she couldn’t finish all the meat in it. I got the rare beef, tendon and tripe. Tripe was undercooked and still hard to chew. The tendon, always my 2^nd fave cut in the phở realm, was perfectly cooked in contrast. Hubby didn’t really comment on his dish as he slurped away.
We also ordered the spring rolls as we usually do at phở places. They were large and cut in half, beautifully made and presented. Unfortunately, they were bland bland bland. Didn’t even taste like they put any mint or basil in it. The sauce was also not great, more sugary/​syrupy than peanuty. We packed most of it up and had it at home with our own homemade sauce later that evening.
Cleanliness was an issue. A quick glance around told me they leave little stacks of sauce dishes on each table. Because it was the end of the day, some tables were left with just a couple of these dishes. Ours had one and it had food debris in it. Super gross they didn’t just take it away. And I suppose it would have been beyond them to provide more, especially when they finally noticed the dirty dish when we moved it aside after being seated. Also, what is up with servers bringing you plates with their thumb right in the middle of the top plate? Leaves a visible thumb print! Please don’t do that… ick.
I do appreciate the extra Asian flavor this place brings to the Irvine Spectrum (sorry, Panda Express only half counts.)

(+) zero wait time at 7:30pm on a Friday
(+) fast service
(-) warm soup, not even hot
(-) too bland, most phở I’ve tried don’t usually need condiments
(-) only 5 pieces of onions rings on there, they offer extra onions as an add on… really?

The greens are not super fresh and the inside or outside sitting area can be too hot to eat hot phở, especially in Summer, but I like their super crunchy eggrolls and their friendly, attentive service.
On weekends, spectrum parking can be hell even though they built more parking structure. But the benefit of this location for me is that they open till late. (11pm)
I have tried chicken, all meat, rare steak with beef stock, shrimp phở, eggrolls and spring rolls. Spring rolls are not fresh, chicken phở was a bit stinky. All meat phở was pretty greasy and stinky as well. But their egg rolls are very big and crunchy, these must the best item at this place. Shrimp phở is clean and beef stock phở with rare steak is pretty light yet flavorful.
They don’t cook the noodle perfect, usually overcooked, the rare steak is just sweet soy saucelike korean american teriyaki beef flavor?), but overall this place suits late night quick bite needs. Also, relaxing or taking a walk in the spectrum after, makes its location attractive.
They only have one tiny unisex restroom, so sitting too close to the restroom can be yucky because the restroom can easily be dirty and stinky.

My coworkers and I went out to lunch at the new Phở Saigon Pearl over at the Spectrum. My coworkers are Vietnamese and they are always trying to find decent Vietnamese places to visit. Sometimes I wish that they’d expand their palette to other cuisines but it’s good to eat something you’re familiar with. Upon walking up, I told them we had 9 people in our party so they said we could either put 2 tables together or sit separately at nearby tables. At first, sitting at nearby tables seemed to be more comfortable but then we decided sitting at a single table was more preferable.
I ordered the small phở tai chin gan ($ 7.50) for dine-​in and a Thai dessert to-​go. The small phở was a rather big bowl that arrived with the beef fairly cooked through. The noodles were okay and the broth was fine. I was decidedly happy with it. However, the price is kind of expensive for phở which I didn’t enjoy. I know it’s at the Irvine Spectrum and it’s as if you have to pay more just to breathe the air here, but really. The Thai dessert was a nice treat and that was $ 4.50. My wallet felt the sting but my stomach was at least full. The location is great and the place is clean. Service was good and my coworkers seemed to enjoy their food. I’m sure we’ll be back for lunch again.

I am actually surprised how low the rating is for this Phở restaurant. Service is exceptional for an asian restaurant, price is great, super clean including the restroom and food is amazing. Hmmmm
Service: ⁵⁄₅
Food: ⁵⁄₅ (Shaking Beef and Phở with well done flanks)
Atmosphere: ⁵⁄₅
Cleanliness: ⁵⁄₅
Price: 5/​5, especially for the real estate in this area, I am sure it’s a fortune to run a business here.
I hope they will stick around, I will definitely be back and recommend my friends to try it.

Glad they were able to add an Asian restaurant in the Irvine spectrum. This place is located next to TLT and Lyfe Kitchen behind Sports Authority.
There are few tables inside but most of the seating is in the patio, which is great to enjoy and soak in the beautiful OC weather.
We ordered a few drinks and dishes:
Lychee Drink– Refreshing and light. But tasted right out of a Lychee fruit can from an asian store.
Thai iced tea w/​Boba — Boba is hard and not soft and chewy
Garlic noodles w/​chicken– Delicious and tasty. My kids also loved this dish and will definitely order it again.
Phở– Husband enjoyed it. Enjoyed the broth after adding his custom condiments and veggies.
Filet mignon entrée– Served w/​rice, eggroll and salad. Meat was flavorful and tender.
Grilled shrimp and chicken entrée– Served w/​rice, eggroll, salad and side vinegrette. However, I didn’t enjoy the eggroll. It lacked flavor, was oily, ever my kids wouldn’t eat it and they love eggrolls or anything shaped like it.
Overall great and convenient if your looking to chow down on Asian food in Spectrum. Prices are affordable and service is punctual.

Nothing like a good phở on a cold day.
Set inside the Irvine Spectrum, right next to the garage parking lot, this spot was the perfect convenient eating spot on my cold birthday. Seating was both indoor and outdoor, with cover and heater.
Lets start off with the food. An average assortment of vietnamese dishes.
What ordered:
# 19 Phở with rare steak, fatty flank, well done brisket, tendon and tripe
# 20 Phở with well done brisket and flank
#21 Phở with fatty flank, crunchy flank, and tendon
#30 Rice with pork
I’ll have to say, I like this spot. The meat grade they use here is an A. Flavor for the phở is spot on. Bowls come in 2 sizes, small and large. If you go large, be hungry. They are not shy with their proportions here. Not at all. Tendons chewy and flavorful, lean cuts for their beef. mmmm… For the most part, the food was great.
So why the 3 stars you ask… In my reviews I always mention the customer service. It’s important for a great experience. Service was like the weather, cold and brief. Granted we had a party of 10, but with half of the restaurant empty, and a full staff on hand, they should have had this. 15 minutes to get a table, and another 15 – 20 to get orders in. Thats fine, maybe just a hiccup right? Nope, 2 messed up soup bowls, missing drinks, and minutes of trying to get someones attention for chillis, chopsticks, and other condiments. Waters were not filled throughout the experience, and not once were we asked if we needed anything, or checked apon to see if our party was ok. Boy are they lucky the food was good.
In short the experience was just ok. Not bad enough to mess up my birthday, not good enough for me to elaborate anymore than what I’ve said. A second chance will clear the air, just not anytime soon seeing as, I live in Vegas son!
Worth the go.

Excellent restaurant. The Phở was amazing. Appatizers delicious. I loved this restaurant. I’ll come back soon