An Choi

I love coming to this place, the service is fast and prices are quite low. I usually like to order the beef noodle soup or the buluklock, both dishes taste great. I always recommend this pace to my friends. 4 stars instead if 5 because of their delivery service that usually take for a while and the food doesn’t always come hot. Overall nice place for lunch.

Just order via grubhub because I’m obsessed with their phở. Me being me I requested extra lime, in the additional directions, in the most obnoxious way possible.
«Extra lime, like a lot of lime, like some more lime, like if you thought you put enough lime put more lime, like basically a whole lime please and thank you»
And when I received my order I had a good laugh. The first take out box was stuffed to the brim with lime; a whole lime as long as slices of lime. To top it off on the inside flap of the take out box it read «Not lime… Like at all».
Moral of the story I appreciated the dry sense of humor along with the delicious phở:)

Cozy little place. I always get the phở and Bahn mi combo. The tofu phở is my favorite. The service is okay but not great. One of the girls is great. Wish i knew her name.

Finally– a half Bahn-​Mi sandwich & half Phở soup special to help you try both Vietnamese favorites in one meal.
Atmosphere: casual, tightly packed, some Vietnamese propaganda décor to make it feel more divey
Service: existent but not super attentive– more like call me if you need me but I’m not hovering on your water consumption
Food: sooooo good– and the reason it’s packed. Phở had a very rich broth that was still seeping the oxtail juices out of my pores the next morning– but was definitely made better with some sriracha & duck sauce added in addition to the basil & jalapeños. Bahn-​mi bread perfectly baked to be crunchy on outside and soft on inside with a hearty balance of protein to veggies & sauce.

Small but charming and cozy place to have lunch on the les. The catfish sandwich was the bomb! Service was attentive and the place was toasty on a cold winter day. Can’t wait to return and try the phở

I have only ever ordered take out from here but every time I do It is amazing! The food is always prepared quickly and is so delicious!
I always get the bahn mi, I’ve tried both the lemongrass pork and the traditional. I would probably lean more towards the original but both are delicious! I would definitely recommend coming here!

The French Drip Coffee with condensed milk is a dessert in itself. I’m still thinking about that coffee. Food is great and delicious! I would go the half noodle have sandwich route, best of both worlds!

The Beef broth was just not good — really lacking complexity — and took away from the enjoyment of the solid The French Dip Banh Mi $ 11.00 (Banh mi phở bo. With hoisin sauce, beef brisket, bean sprouts, basil and peppers. Served with a bowl of beef broth.), which was 4 material.

This place is crowded for good reason. The phở is really good and the ban mi was rather authentic. The basil and herbs were fresh and so was the long hair wrapped around the well roasted pork belly.
I’m sure an isolated incident, but it’s going to take a lil while before I go back.

The veggie phở at An Choi is so great! I am so lucky my friend introduced me to this unassuming gem. We also got a mix of veggie spring rolls to start and each one was more delicious than the last, although I think the one with brussels sprouts was my fave. We sat at the big communal table in the front window and enjoyed a long, lazy Sunday lunch that was much more luxurious than it should have been. Love this place!

Loved everything about An Choi!
The service is very friendly.
The décor is hip and cozy.
Great atmosphere, with great music and perfect noise level so you can actually talk to your party.
And most importantly the cuisine is very good, fresh and feels very authentic. And icing on the cake, very affordable.
I definitely recommend An Choi and will definitely go back and talk about it!

I’ve had this fervent obsession with soup & noodles over the past year or so. I was a newcomer to the Vietnamese cuisine, and so when I heard of phở, my first thought was PHOCK YEAH; I gotta try some. I had tickets to a show in NYC and did some Googling and saw this place posted online for one of the best phở serving places in the «area.»
So, there I was. Sitting in a place that resembled an alleyway, waiting for my phở while drinking a cucumber margarita. The disheveled décor, the graffiti, the red lights, the waitresses with their winged eyeliner and dice earrings. In some strange way, I felt… cozy and comforted. Not because the sitting room was tight, which it most certainly is. I felt like I had walked down stairs into some underground, hidden corridor of culture. Sure, maybe that’s the «hipster» appeal so many people in the area lube themselves up for. But for me, I didn’t get a pretentious vibe. Maybe it was just the one night I was there. But it seemed like a place that wasn’t trying to be anything– just was what it was. I can appreciate that.
I had the beef phở with additional oxtail. Ever since my first bite, I was instantly hooked. This place planted the seed of what is now a full-​blown phở infatuation. My bf had the roast pork belly banh mi and now seems to be pretty much all up on that a$$.
I would love to go back, now after eating some other places’ phở and seeing if it still holds that excellent novelty.
This has been a real and truthful review as always from,
~Brutally Anonymous~

What the fuck happened here?
I’ve been back twice since my last review and the broth is all off. Something is missing and I don’t know what it is, but what I do know is that I don’t like it enough to order again. If I can make it better then you, you better wow me with service, strippers or cocaine, because I won’t go out of my way to come back or recommend. The sandwiches ARE still on point. I’m just so disappointed with the broth, now.

An Choi serves Vietnamese food with some street food style and LES hipster flair. On one hand, it has a traditional banh mi phở menu and décor to fit an authentic street café. On the other hand, the beer/​wine selections, the grungy bathroom, and the price point show us that gentrification is alive and well.
We were seated quickly on a Sunday at 1:30 pm, thankfully since it was a bit nippy outside. Service is prompt and good at checking in, asking good questions and keeping things short and sweet. Seating can be a little cramped (you are still in the LES), so think twice about bringing the baby carriage.
We ordered:
Phở bo dac biet (beef noodle deluxe soup)
Taro fries with kewpie
Original banh mi with pâté
The phở is classic and simple, with a mild beef broth, lots of meat, and just cooked noodles. You get all the bean sprouts, onions, and basil on the side. Compared to the $ 6 bowl of phở you can get on Baxter St, at An Choi you get more meat and a less sodium laden broth. Size is about the same, but quality is a bit better. That said, the deluxe is $ 13.50, so its double the price of crosstown competition.
Taro fries are a nice change from potato fries. Taro is not as crispy as potato, and is more cakey/​spongy in texture. Kewpie is delish, add some sriracha for amped up deliciousness. While novel and fun, the taro fries lack the salt and satisfaction as potato fries — I’m not sure I’d get it again.
The banh mi was okay. The bread isn’t as crisp as a baguette should be — this version is more chewy. Flavors are rather mild. I would rather go to Hanco’s. Price was fair though.
Fun to try, not bad. But not amazing.

A tight squeeze but some good food. Maybe not a place for a business dinner but rather for the anti-​business dinner. You know, there have been too many heavy meals on the trip but you still need something to eat? This is a good place. It has a lot of healthy and lighter vegetarian choices. It was loud and crowded so don’t plan to hang around or carry on a detailed conversation.

I ate at An Choi last Friday night with two friends. It was about a 15 – 20 minute wait at 7:45 pm, which wasn’t bad at all. The service was a bit slow once we got seated though. It took quite a while for someone to take our order and no one came to refill our waters. The food and drinks came out quickly though. We each got a margarita but they weren’t very strong. We got the chicken and pork egg rolls to start, and they were surprisingly really good! They were a good size too. (I hate it when egg rolls are tiny!)
I can never choose between banh mi and phở, and I really loved that fact that An Choi had a combo option: half banh mi and half phở. This is the first place I’ve found that does this! I got the original banh mi and the spicy beef soup. I thought the flavor of the soup was really good (not very spicy though), except that the noodles were more like udon noodles, instead of phở noodles. My friend got the chicken phở and her noodles were phở noodles, so I’m not sure why mine came with a different kind. The banh mi was okay, but definitely not amazing. The bread was too chewy and the inside was lacking a certain sauce. It was still a satisfying meal and very filling. The music and the atmosphere were enjoyable as well. It’s a great to go with one or two friends, but definitely not a group. Definitely not good for a first date though – I think it’d be too loud.

I discovered this gem through Instagram. Is that super cheesy? No.
Alright, let’s get to in. Came here for dinner (8p) on a Saturday night and there was a roughly 25 minutes wait. The exterior + interior is very cool. Lots of stickers and kind of reminds of a hip diner if you will. Small space though.
Food — i was hoping to get the bimbamboop? (I forgot it). As my second choice I got the tofu bun instead. Crispy fried tofu, drizzled with sweet and sour sauce with vermicelli nobodies, greens and peanuts and taro egg rolls. A side of fish sauce. You get the options with Soy Sauce too but that’s just awful… Ew.
Overall the dish was wonderful! It’s very hard for me to vegetarian egg rolls in the city! Unless you count Chinese fast food…
Service — unfortunately this was the bad part. Either they were understaffed or just inattentive to service. The woman almost forgot my fish sauce on the side… she was polite about it though and i was not being a rude customer about it.
Oh! I got the 33 beer, imported Vietnamese beer, Golden Pale Ale and my oh my, so yummy!
I am definitely going to come back to try other vegetarian options on the menu (:
Oh, a little more pricey compared to some places you’d find in Chinatown. But it’s okay.

You will feel cool simply by eating here. The interior is decorated REALLY nicely, the clientele here is pretty hip, and the street it’s on is one of the best in all of NYC.
They offer standard Vietnamese fare (phở, banh mi, vermicelli, meat/​fish entrees) done really well and priced cheaply. May be biased about their banh mi as these are the first I’d ever had (vietnamese sandwiches, just in case), but I can’t get enough of the original sandwich here. Drink program as of late 2014 was a bit weak, none of the cocktails seemed the great… would go with beer/​wine unless they’ve improved it since then. The place is a great experience and a phenomenal meal.

Hands down my favorite restaurant in the city. Chill vibes, great food (I suggest the shaking beef or the vermicelli bowls or the phở dac biet), and great service.
I’m Vietnamese and the phở broth here is pretty amazing. I would say better than my mom’s. The broth is simmered (for apparently 24 hours!) and once you garnish it with the herb plate, yum yum yum! Don’t miss it!

After some evening drinks, my bf and I wanted some food before heading home. I had the Phở Dac Biet ($ 13.50) and the bf had the Phở Ga ($ 11). The broth was decent clean tasting topped with chopped herbs cilantro, culantro, scallions, and onions. The Phở Dac Biet had rare flank, cooked brisket slices, oxtail, tendon, and beef balls. On the side were a sprig of Thai basil, bean sprouts, fresh chilis, and wedges of lime. The Phở Ga had a gentle chicken broth flavor, sweeter than I would have liked, and had some slices of cooked chicken. Not bad but honestly, just boring. A squirt of Sriracha in the soup solves those issues but, I shouldn’t have to use it.
Those prices are rough considering Chinatown is a few blocks away. If I wanted mediocre Vietnamese food, I could easily get my fill for much less by walking over a few blocks.