Saigon Number One Noodle House

Ate here for dinner on a Monday night. I was the only person in the restaurant, so the service was great! I had the char-​grilled pork and egg roll vermicelli, which was flavorful. Although, as another reviewer pointed out, it had strange dipping sauce. When I order vermicelli, I’m used to seeing sauce that is light brownish with bits of carrot, for example. However, this dipping sauce was pinkish and tasted different. Other than that it was a pleasant experience.

Went here for dinner tonight with my fiancé. Inside is not much to look at. Looks kind of run down. Don’t be discouraged though! The food is awesome! I told the lady I didn’t eat meat she made me a veggie tofu curry dish with vermicelli noodles that wasn’t even on the menu. Fiancé got chicken curry. Huge portions I didn’t even put a dent in my food.

Great service and great food. I had the shredded pork and barbecued pork over vermicelli and my wife had the chicken curry over vermicelli noodles too (medium spicy). Both were fantastic. Will order more take out in the future.

4 grad students from HI on a road trip from Omaha, NE to Myrtle Beach, SC. Having stopped in KC for BBQ, we werre oddly craving phở (of all things) in Tennessee. We noticed Nashville had a couple legit looking places according to Unilocal but the time wasn’t going to match up as we’d be driving through at around 1am… so we came here instead. We got there maybe an hour before they closed and the parking lot was deserted. It made me nervous… but from the outside, the restaurant looked nice and inviting. The inside wasn’t what i expected — when i sat down in the booth the cushion sank in the middle into an uncomfortable v shape. But who cares, i was excited for phở! Unfortunately i’d be utterly disappointed. The phở had so much MSG, the 2 other people who had phở and myself were swollen and tingling afterwards! I’ve never ever had that feeling after eating phở. I read a lot of reviews about the owner having an amazing story about refugee-​ing it from Vietnam. But one thing i usually say is just because you’re Vietnamese doesn’t mean you can cook vietnamese food. And it goes for all ethnicities and their unique foods. I guess i shouldn’t have expected good phở in Tennessee but it was still pretty disappointing none the less.

Tucked away in a small little corner of a strip mall, Number One Noodle House is a nice gem in the rough.
Went for lunch and had the Spring Roll (which was very large), and a bowl of chargrilled chicken and noodles with hot sauce on the side. Great dish, alot a flavor, and more than I could finish for lunch portion.
Definitely not a place to go for the décor, but the food was great.

I’m sorry to burst everyone’s bubble, but this is as far from authentic as the fortune cookie, which itself was disappointingly stale. Maybe this review will hit readers as food snobbery, but when you come from California and have tasted true Vietnamese cuisine, this Americanized stuff can never pass as satiable ever again. I came in here hoping to get a typical phở dish, and was in for the biggest letdown of the year. Phở is a token Viet dish, yet for a place calling themselves the #1 noodle house (they probably are the only one here), this was the sorriest excuse for phở I’ve ever seen. It consisted of only a small amount of beef and noodles, which weren’t even phở noodles, but were more flat and square. The beef was unsatisfying in texture and the soup was overly salty. I wish I had something positive, but really, I’m not feeling creative enough today. As soon as I peaked at the menu, I should have walked out, b/​c with no descriptions of what were in the noodles, I suspected there was something amiss. If you’ve ever had true Viet food, don’t even bother with this place, even if you’re desperate… Half the portions for $ 10 vs. $ 7 back home for triple the amount of much better meat is almost criminal…

I went there twice about two years ago and was not impressed at all. It is semi– Vietnamese food. The nuoc mam chum (fish dipping sauce) is a bright red color and it is suppose to be a rich, amber color. The cha gio (spring roll) was very bland and flavorless. I love Vietnamese food but not this place. It is definitely not the best place for Vietnamese food but neither are the other «Vietnamese» restaurants in Oak Ridge and Knoxville.

This authentic Vietnamese restaurant is located right off the main streets in Oak Ridge. Who would have thought you could find such an authentic place in Oak Ridge!
It is a very small establishment and was very busy for lunch. We walked in and almost every table was full with half of the tables paying and more people walking in to sit down. It was definitely a hole in the wall, and a jewel for Oak Ridge.
They lady who waited on us was the owner and I was told she makes most of her meat dishes at home so she doesn’t have to prepare much when she is working at her restaurant and that way she can give her customers more attention. The music in the restaurant was funny. We heard tunes such as the Ghostbusters theme song and the Adams Family theme song. Funny for a Vietnamese restaurant, right?
We ordered: the Seafood Rice Noodle Soup; the Shrimp and Sour Vermicelli Soup, and the Curry Chicken with Steamed Rice. We sipped on Green Tea with our lunch. The Shrimp and Sour Vermicelli Soup was really good and recommended to me by the owner. It had an exotic taste with lemongrass and other flavors. It was similar to a Bo Phở, but at the same time very different. The Curry Chicken with Steamed Rice was excellent! The vibrant yellow color was just as flavorfully vibrant as it looked. I did not try the Seafood Rice Noodle Soup but apparently my friend said he always gets that because it is so good. Since he works in Oak Ridge this place was extremely convenient for him. I would totally recommend this place. If I lived closer to this place I would be getting take-​out all the time!
If you are in the Oak Ridge area, you must try this place out. Knoxvillians if you want some truly authentic Vietnamese food you should venture out and try this place out! Pictures are to come.
Cheers and Enjoy!

I’ve heard good things about Saigon Number One Noodle House, but Briarcliff Shopping Center is outside my usual stompin’ grounds, so I had never eaten there. Janelle P’s review finally convinced me to check it out. I went there for take-​out when I was in the area. I’m not an expert on Vietnamese food, but my vermicelli with pork was tasty.
I was the only customer in the place, so it should not be surprising that I found the service both fast and friendly. The menu and price list are a bit of a puzzle, though — apparently they’ve raised prices since they last printed the menu, so there’s a confusing sign about the increases in prices of various types of items.

I love Janelle P! I heard there was a Vietnamese restaurant in Oak Ridge about two years ago but no one knew where it was and I figured it would be mediocre at best. Janelle’s review made me look for it. Turns out it’s sort of behind Roane State in the strip mall she described so well. Miss Kim, the owner and cook, seemed a little unfriendly at first but since she was the only one working on a Friday night I tried to be understanding. By the time we left we were talking like we were old friends. We started with spring rolls and Vietnamese egg rolls. Both were excellent. The only negative thing I could say was that the spring rolls had a lot of vermicelli and not much shrimp. That said, they were still excellent! My wife got the Saigon Noodle House Special Soup and it came in the GIANT bowl you expect from a genuine Vietnamese restaurant. It had noodles, shrimp, pork, fish, crab, and vegetables and my wife loved it. She said later she didn’t expect much from a «noodle house» (she’d never eaten Vietnamese before) but she loved it. I tried some, and it was good, but I was busy eating my vermicelli with pork. It was also very good! That was Friday night. Well, Monday for lunch I went with a co-​worker and I had the Phở. I’m no expert on Vietnamese food but I’ve eaten it in Dallas, Atlanta, and Brunswick. The phở was probably the best I’ve ever had — anywhere. Miss Kim even came to the table and told me about the spices and how to use the basil and sauces that came with it. I ate here twice in three days and I’ll be eating here again very soon! Thanks again Janelle!