Saigon Pho & Sandwiches

We’ve been coming here since they first opened & we’ve seen all the changes from ownership to customer service. To be completely honest, yes, the new owner’s personality is the type you either like or don’t like but she has a good heart & the phở is the best ever. Her meatballs are made from scratch every morning & so is her broth. She drives from the bay everyday & really loves what she does. We will continue to come here as long as it stays open

Good little place. New owner and the food is still on point. I’ve only had the phở and the vermicelli here. I think people give this place a bad rap. New owner is working hard.

I would not recommend this place to anyone. Stay away from this restaurant altogether. I have never experienced customer service this horrible before. The server gave us the worst attitude, and when we asked for an extra bowl she literally rolled her eyes and walked away. Then she comes back with a tiny bowl saying that, that was the only available size, which I’m sure wasn’t true. Then when it came to paying, she had told us our total and when we told her we had a student ID she basically scolded us about it and went on this rant about how if students want to be helped we have to help her too. Her negativity definitely rubs off on you, so unless you want to eat a crappy meal and leave unhappy then I suggest to stay far away from this place.
As for the food, it definitely was not fresh and they ran out of everything we tried to order. Mind we didn’t even dine in near closing time.

i ordered #5 their egg rolls are pretty good. the egg roll sause had a funny taste to it .
i also ordered #12 a sandwhich was not as good very incomplete and the meat smell or has a bitter taste to it like its almost rotten. i thought it would be good but i had better viet sanwhiches in modesto and sac

Terrible place!!! The owner was the waitress/​cashier and possibly the cook too… i ordered spring rolls for $ 4.25 and the small bowl of chicken phở $ 6.00. And she rung me up and it totalled to $ 14.50. Needless to say i did not tip her… when i questioned her she fed me a bullshit story. Ugh! What a crook! The food was mediocre at most. Avoid this place!!!

Over this place. Use to love this place before they went under new management. Now the new manager is a total be word. She was repeatably rude to me and my friends on multiple occasions. When we told her we were UC students, she told us it was «to late» to put in the discount… This happened to us twice. Also their phở has lost its charm. You can no longer substitute meat. I have come to find out that they actually switched chefs with Noah’s Vietnamese Cuisine which, after investigating for my self, makes perfect sense. Noah’s is by far better. It taste more authentic. And they don’t force you to eat only the generic rare beef phở (meaning no brisket, tripe, etc).

I come here all the time I enjoy it here until today. Came here with my step daughter and mother today and the customer service was terrible she was rude when my mom asked her questions. I mean to the point I wanted to walk out. After today I will never come back. To the waitress (older women w/​glasses) working this afternoon here’s your tip get a new job or leave the attitude at the door.

A few friends and I came before the dinner rush. We didn’t order too much aside from phở, but it took a long time to get our food. The lady was sweet and talked to us when she could. I had the brisket phở – at least I think I did. It was okay. Service was good but slow and phở was okay. Dont come if you’re starving. You might have to wait a while.

The Phở really hits the spot when you’re craving soup at 7:00 pm. The ratio of meat to Phở was great, and I also enjoyed the quality of the broth, phở, and meats. The service was also a great experience for me. I wouldn’t say that this is the best Phở out there, but I can say that I definitely enjoyed my time there!

This Place Used To Be Good When It First Opened. This Use To Be My Regular Spot Until They Switched Owners. I Actually Don’t Know How Many Times They’ve Switched Owners. I Came Here Last Month To Try This Place Again After A Couple Of Years. I Ordered The Fried Calamari Which Was About 9.00 & When It Came Out There Was Only 5 Pieces. Like Wth? Totally Wasted Money Paying For It. I Didn’t Even Want To Pay For The Calamari. The Phở Broth Was Pretty Good. But Prices Went Up. Plus They Don’t Even Give You A Lot Of Meat. I Had 2 Pieces Of Steak & 1 Meat Ball That Was Cut In Half. Totally Not Worth The 9 Bucks. I Wouldn’t Come Here Again. Too Expensive & Not Worth It. Not Only That But I Waited 1 Hr For My Phở. Phở Should Be The First Thing That Comes Out Fast. Other Phở Restaurant I’ve Been To When I Order It Comes Out Within 5mins. Bad Service. Will Not Be Returning.

Had a nice lunch today with my friend, we both had (fresh) spring rolls and phở. The broth was especially nice, the service was good and she checked back a couple of times to see if we needed anything. Love going into local restaurants and seeing college students having a good time! We will be back.

My boyfriend and I came in with low expectations. We just wanted a quick bite. He is a very picky eater and didn’t like phở or Asian subs, but I talked him into it. He loved both. The owner I think also was very friendly and wished us Merry Christmas which really made me sure to come back more often!

The waitress said she would never eat the food here. Take her advice.
We ordered a Vietnamese sandwhich, which can only be qualified as such, because someone Vietnamese made the sandwhich. Served on a soft french roll instead of a baguette. Daikon wasn’t great.
Bad customer service.

The food is not even subpar. The broth is fine but me and my two friends had undercooked noodles so they don’t even come apart. The meat had a weird taste to them and I have been to a lot of phở places to know how the meat normally taste like. The kicker here though is the discount. I went up to pay and showed my student id and had it denied because she already ringed me up. The reason being she can’t cancel it is because her boss told her he is in trouble by the irs… for continually canceling orders to apply the discount. The reason she gave me for not asking for my I’d before she ringed me is she didn’t want to «offend» me. I literally do not understand what is there to offend.
TL;DR Food and service is bad and the payment method is disastrous. Avoid this place.

Horrible customer service, and the most I’ve ever paid for a bowl of Phở. Food is low quality and of poor quality.
I wanted a bowl of phở, i saw this placed on Unilocal,and decided to ignore the negative reviews. Bad decision. This place has some of the worst customer service i’ve ever experienced in Merced. They truly don’t care about the customer.
We called to order a combination bowl to go, we asked if there was one with just meatballs and tripes, and the lady said «we don’t do substitutions for customers» I should have hung up at that time, but was hungry and said ok, I’ll let it slide. When I was paying for my food, the lady at the register basically scolded me for using my card, and said that after today there will be a .75 cent fee to use the card. I asked for more Hosin sauce, and she had attitude. I don’t get it, this place acts like it doesn’t need customers, I would tolerate it if they made a decent bowl of Phở, but they don’t.
Food: We ordered the large combination plate to go. It was $ 9.50, the most I’ve ever paid for a bowl of Phở. This would be ok, if it was good, but it was not. The bowl hardly had any meat. The tendon was very chewy, and all the meat of poor quality.
I would not recommend this place, horrible customer service, overpriced, and poor quality phở.

Went here with my family on a Sunday afternoon. There was only one other party aside from us there and yet it took so long for the kitchen to bring out our food. It took 45 minutes-​1 hour for everyone to get their food. I ordered a sandwich and didn’t even get it until everyone was done with their phở. My cousin who doesn’t ever waste food gave up on his phở.
I went next door to Tokyo Don during my wait and got all my food faster than my family! And the service was much more courteous.
There was no Hoisin or Sriracha in any of the bottles in the restaurant. Chopsticks smelled like glue. Stingy on napkins. Food delivery was sporadic. Noodles weren’t fresh (they were globbed together as if they were left out).

Rarely do I EVER rate any restaurant this bad, but my experience was horrible! Not only that, this was my first time ever trying this place out.
After hearing about all the great stories from fellow family members and a few friends, I thought to finally try this place out. So that’s exactly what I did today.
First impression while walking in, warm/​hot/​humid air. Then I realized they didn’t have their AC on. Either because it was broken or they’d rather not pay for their AC to be used. They had a mini fan on the left side of the cashier blowing out semi cool air. The lady behind the counter greeted us with a, «How many? Sit wherever you’d like.» So we found our own seats and sat down. Service was REALLY slow. The poor lady who was working in the front was literally seating, cashiering, taking orders, bringing out orders, making drinks, etc for everyone that was there. Although I feel bad for her, she should have had the people in the back help out or something! They were really understaffed.
In addition, I saw on the white board near the register that they were out of beef stew, milk teas, and a few other items. There were 4 of us and as we started to order, she kept saying, «Oh. We’re out of that.» I can literally say that she said they were out of at least 4 things we tried to order. I didn’t understand why they didn’t just shut down for the day since they practically had nothing much left. Our waitress also stood there while we were talking about a taro shake and she clearly knew one of us was going to order taro, but she didn’t say anything to us until she came back the second time around and one of my friends ordered the taro shake. She then states, «Oh. We’re out of the taro as well.» By this time, I was a little annoyed and irritated so I asked her, «Well what do you guys have then?»
Anywho, one of my friends ordered their spring rolls, my other friend ordered their phở with a mango shake and jelly (then she states they don’t have anymore jelly), my last friend ended up ordering just their honeydew shake since they didn’t have taro, and I ordered their chicken banh mi sandwich after the whole ordeal. The spring roll comes out first, the phở comes out second and my sandwich comes out third. About 3 mins later, one of my friend’s mango shake comes out. (Let me remind you that we all received our food first already. The shake should have been the first thing to come out.) My friend finishes her spring roll, my other friend finishes her phở, and I finally finish my sandwich. The honeydew shake still is not out yet. So my friend goes up to try to cancel the order of the shake and she states, «Oh. I have everything already ready in the blender. I’d have to charge you for it even if you don’t want it.» So she comes back to our table and tells us that. We wait patiently for another 2 mins and she still has yet to blend the damn shake! By this time, I was to my limit and we all got up and stood in line to pay for our order. When I got to the cashier, I asked politely if she could just cancel the order. She states, «Oh. I just talked to my boss and he told me that he’ll let it go THIS TIME.» WHAT THE F*CK! I don’t have time for bullsh*ting. I calmly stated back, «Ok, because THE SHAKE should have been the 1ST thing to come out.» She didn’t say anything after that. I paid for my food and waited for the other girls to pay for their food and we left.
Now back to how the food tasted… my friend stated their spring rolls weren’t as great as she thought they would have been. It seemed like she ate 1 spring roll in total when there were quite a few pieces on the plate. She bit into her first spring roll and there were literally nothing in the damn spring rolls. A few kapoon noodles, cucumber, and some old lettuce. My other friend ate some of her phở, but not all of it. I ate my sandwich because I was starving, but it was very bland! Chicken seemed to be kind of old. In addition, my damn lettuce was wilted and OLD! Who the heck serves that kind of lettuce?!
All in all, this was my first experience there and my LAST experience there. They had horrible customer service, food wasn’t fresh, and it’s damn hot up in that place. At least leave the doors open so the cool air can get in!
I don’t recommend anyone to come to this place. Make your money useful elsewhere. PERIOD!

Honestly, they could’ve done better. I understand that there aren’t many Vietnamese places around and they will receive service for anyone who is craving phở but I could definitely tell that their phở was made poorly. Service was alright though.
I ordered the house special phở (large) and my friend got the vermicelli noodles with pork. When I received my dish I was underwhelmed realizing that the noodles were stuck together and the broth was not hot enough to separate the strands. The broth was nothing special but at least the meats were tasty. My friend said that her noodles were good and decently filling. Unless you’re known for not eating much at all, you won’t be stuffed with just the bowl.

Decent phở, better hours than some other places in Merced, and offers a student discount. Sandwiches are whatever. Service is standard for a phở restaurant… ah. You know what I mean.
CC accepted.

I used to go to this place at least once a week, I haven’t been back since the changed of owner ship a couple of months ago. I decided to go back there to give it another try
The food was not the same, the soup was plain, I had to add in my own seasoning to make it even taste like something. Even though the server checked up on us, she didn’t seem to be friendly or wanted to be there.
I probably wont be coming back for awhile.