Trieu Vinh Ocean Pacific Restaurant

Service is horrible. Came here because we needed a quick bite and we shouldve kept walking. The waitress forgot to ask us for our drink orders, found HAIR in the food, and when we paid, the waitress said our tip was not enough. This place needs to close down.

There’s something appealing about 1950s style melamine tables (a bit chipped and worn through the top in places) and vinyl cushioned chairs, all in a Vietnamese restaurant.
Clearly, this place isn’t the best. Previous reviewers have said as much. The service is not quick. However I don’t care.
I’ve been wandering by this restaurant for a number of years, and on-​and-​off through its doors many times. I’m not sure business was ever great for this place. most times the owner is opening the door beckoning people to come in to her nearly empty restaurant.
I’ve always eaten the Phở. The beef phở is good, certainly not great. However, I learned by accident that the chicken phở is really quite good. She was out of beef one time — in fact phở wasn’t even on the menu (she told me she had a new cook), She asked if I’d eat chicken, and about 15 minutes later came out a wonderful bowl of chicken phở. Not great as far as the noodles go… average. But the chicken was definitely fresh and there was plenty of it. It was a good portion overall, and the price was average with other restaurants.
This place is sentimental I guess for me. It isn’t the best of places, nor would I likely try some of the dishes here. However, if you can excuse the old lady with her running commentary as you’re eating, and the desolateness caused by lack of customers, it’s somehow nice.

I really regret I came to this restaurant. I was in a hurry and needed to have a quick lunch before a meeting. I walked by and saw there were only two customers who almost finished their meal. I went in as I thought there would be no waiting time and I could get out fast. It was a mistake!
To say the least, the service was slow. I placed my order (the only order they had at that time) and it took them at least 15 mins to prepare a simple phở. The house special phở cost me more than $ 10.00. It was not tasty at all and the ingredients were not fresh. I had yet to come to a Vietnamese phở restaurant that served you brownish yellow bean sprouts. Eww!!! I was literally shocked. They didn’t even have fresh bean sprouts. The fish balls were not chewy and they tasted like they had been in the fridge for long time. I could not even finish the pricey bowl of phở. What a waste of money and appetite!
I will never come back again!

This is located on 859 N. Broadway St and it’s also listed as Ocean Pacific Restaurant in the yellow pages, very confusing, do they want us to call them Trieu-​Vinh or Ocean Pacific? Either way I just updated the business list with street # and ph #.

3 Stars for the food. The Beef Phở was ok.
Average with soft crumbling wide-​noodles but the soup tasted ok if a tad salty. Everything came inside the small bowl already but no big deal. When I got the bill of $ 7.95 I thought it was high for what you get.
Minus 1 Star for the service (slow) and the price (high). Note: The food was slow to come out but the waitress’s menu suggestions are machine gun rapid, she can beat used car salesmen in rapid talk any day. (Are you Chinese? No? Then try this, your kind love it you know, or this, I’ve been working here 17 years and these shrimps are good, how about it? Etc. etc. It was kind of funny, I blinked a couple of times and I lost, she just kept going).
Observation: There was a heat-​wave today (my car gauge said 98 °F at one point). The interior of this restaurant, however, was very cold, as if sitting inside a huge refrigerator (It was nice for the first 10minutes, cool! but after that I wished I had a jacket). It was so cold, I jokingly wondered if the workers were all ghosts? Hence the chilly temperature (Kidding about the ghosts, not kidding about the chilly room, that felt chillier when I saw the bill… ha ha…).

Warning, the food (at least from what I ordered) was bad. I ordered the Sweet and Sour Rock Cod with Rice. My friend had Beef Noodle Soup (phở, wait a minute thats Vietnamese food? Aren’t we in a Chinese place? Hmm) and a sweet iced tea. When we got the bill we were truly blown away:
$ 9.95 fish
$ 8.95 Phở
$ 4.00 rice to accompany my dish? say what???
$ 2.00 for Ice Tea (nestea — powdered ice tea may i add)
Seriously, the fish i ordered taste like it came from fresh water. (I swear it was carp or catfish — repulsive at the very least) Something of underlying pond scum meets grape jelly. — the beef noodle soup with an oil slick slightly smaller than the Lebanon oil spill was full of chow fun style rice noodles (ah, i see the Chinese twist on this dish) and a pinch of cilantro. (c’mon now, how much does cilantro really cost?)
I am not a big food expert (course Ive been eating all my life) — but I know pond scum or oil slick when I see it.