Bamboo Fresh Vietnamese Cuisine

THEY’RE CLOSED!
I was disappointed to find out last Friday they were closed because one week prior my fiancé and I went there and had buy 1 get 1 free beef phở. Maybe that was a sign of the downhill decline. But I enjoyed the egg rolls, the phở, and the service. Plus, it has a clean and nice ambiance.
They are replacing this business with a Korean restaurant (mmmm Korean food!)

My husband and I eat here fairly often since it is close to where we live. Particularly for the North County area, Bamboo Fresh is a very good Vietnamese restaurant. As their name implies, their food does taste very fresh. My husband loves their Bo Luc Lac (marinated grilled sirloin served on a sizzling cast iron plate with a side of rice and vegetables). I tend to judge Vietnamese restaurants by their spring rolls, Banh Xeo or Bun Thit Nuong. All of these dishes at Bamboo Fresh passed my test. I particularly enjoy the Banh Xeo which is delicate, crispy, stuffed with pork, shrimp, bean sprouts and jicama and not at all greasy. The only thing I would have liked to have seen is a greater variety of vegetables and herbs served with these dishes. I’ve also tried their phở which is better than the average restaurant. I can’t go as far as to say that the phở is excellent since *no one* makes phở as good as my mom’s.
The service is extremely friendly. The space is clean and pleasant. I have to agree with the other reviewer who said the restaurant lacks a bit of energy and ambience… maybe some quiet music in the background would help. The restaurant never seems to be terribly busy so we’re seated almost immediately. I hope Bamboo Fresh sticks around! I’d hate to have to go back to the Phở Hoas and other just barely mediocre Vietnamese restaurants that are in our area.

One of the cleanest Vietnamese restaurants I’ve been to. We’ve had the chicken soup and the rice vermicelli with pork and egg rolls. Great for the rainy weather that we’ve been having recently. Love that there is finally a Vietnamese restaurant in the RB area.

«what ya don’t like it? finish ya food!!» (insert extreme jewish yenta voice)
though bamboo fresh sports good Vietnamese cooking, i am pretty sure the place is a front for JYI (jewish yentas international). i am almost positive our waiter was the male asian version of such. The petite wrinkled waiter insisted we order a lot of food and proceeded to tell us when we were making a bad decision and what we should get.
example:
Greg: «I think i want the phở»
Karen: «mmh that sounds good.»
waiter «no no no, you get phở anywhere. psh. get this (points to random entrée neither of us could pronounce). This very good. you like»
i was actually pleasantly charmed by this adorable old vietnamese man. and he made very good recommendations. when we said we were finished, he encouraged us to finish our plate even further or take it home. «what, no good?» he challenged. he seemed truly passionate about what he was doing and i really respect that.
and indeed, the food WAS very good. i had tofu and vegetable soup which was very tasty and greg did end up getting the phở and thoroughly enjoyed it as well. we also ordered vegetarian egg rolls (and kiddos, the place does not skimp on this dish, there were about 10 rolls!!! out of control). i also appreciated the wide selection of vegetarian options. for future guests, i would avoid the fake beef and fake abalone though. i’m daring when it comes to food, but not THAT daring.
the setting was nice, it wasn’t too crowded but the patrons that did enter were of vietnamese heritage so you could tell the place was authentic, which i fully support.
minus one for really sucking at refilling the water glasses (although i was happy that the water came with lime instead of the traditional lemon) and for not bringing the check until greg went up to the front to request it.

I really, really wanted to like this place… but after dealing with a raging bout of food poisoning last night, I’m forced to give it 1 star. My husband had phở and didn’t have any problems, so maybe it was just a fluke. However, I’ll never order a chicken broth based soup at a Vietnamese restaurant ever again because of this experience.

I lived in Huntington Beach (Orange County) for 15 years and frequently (1 – 2 times/​week) ate in Westminster –where «Little Saigon» is located. What I’ve found at Bamboo Fresh is that there are items on the menu that I *never* saw at other restaurants. The crêpe dishes are one of these. From watching what others were ordering, this seems to be one of the specialties of the house. We tried one and it was great. I’d describe it as a 12″ pizza-​sized round of thin crispy egg folded in half with a lot of fresh crunchy vegetables, including jicama of all things, mixed with a lot of seafood. You cut some of this off and wrap it in a lettuce leaf with a sprig of mint and dip it into fish sauce just like you would Vietnamese style egg rolls. We’ve ordered phở’ here with each visit because our picky eating little toddler will eat that but won’t try much else that we might order. The phở’ is okay but if you’re a connoisseur of it, you’re better off with Phở’ Ca Dao on Mira Mesa blvd. Bamboo Fresh has the standard phở’, com, and bun dishes that would have me going back to them but it’s all the other dishes that puts them over the top for me. I see this becoming one of our favorites and will probably be trying something new for the next dozen visits or so before narrowing down my favorite 5 – 6 dishes or so.
One thing about Bamboo Fresh is the location –they’ll never build their business from walk by traffic. Absolutely no frontage visibility at all to this place. It’s not necessarily hard to find if you know it’s there though. Anyway, it’s for this reason that I felt compelled to write this review. I love these kind of independent restaurants with great service, great food, and great prices. I’d love to see this kind of place eventually thrive via word of mouth and virtual mouth.

I was at work at Akai Hana and ordered some spring rolls. They were pretty good. Never got the chance to eat their phở cause we normally head to phở cali near RB sushi. Anyways they were pretty chill!

YES! Another good Asian restaurant in Rancho Bernardo! It’s very clean and the service is really good. As for the food, it’s fresh and tasty and inexpensive. I’ve tried the lemongrass chicken (which was really good); fresh spring rolls (good); chicken phở w/​egg noodles (fresh and delicious). I heard they get busy during the day but at night, it’s pretty dead. The two times I’ve been there for dinner, there have only been 4 – 6 people total. Check it out!

Tried this place for lunch and was happy enough that I will definitely go back again.

This place is near where I work and will definitely be added to the rotation. I had the Phở with rare steak. The ingredients were fresh and seemed to be good quality. I’m not an expert on Vietnamese food, but it was as good as if maybe a little better than any I’ve had before. My friends tried the clay pot rice and only had good things to say about it too.
It also gets points for being one of the few Vietnamese places I’ve been to that has a whole page of Vegetarian food. Which is good because we’ve got vegetarians in our lunch group so it makes it easier to come here more often.
Service was great too, and the prices were good for the amount of food you get and being in RB.
Oh yeah… and check their website for coupons… they have one right now that expires the end of September!

Bamboo Fresh is one of my top picks when going for lunch — the dishes are tasty and full of freshness! That’s hard to come by nowadays. I really like the fried rice noodles and vermicelli dishes. Their hearty warm soup with rice noodles is definitely recommended as well on colder days.
Not only that, they have a whole section on vegetarian dishes that are mostly vegan. They even have veg Phở! (in vegetable broth, of course…) Although food is a little bit on the pricier side, quality is definitely better than other Vietnamese restaurants in the area, as well as the quality of their service.
p. s. Friendly service & nice atmosphere — they have a flat-​screen TV!!! Great for crunching in news during lunch time or hang out with your favorite coworkers. Service can be slow at times, though.

Went here for lunch on a Friday and had no problem getting a table. The waitress was very friendly and checked up on me a few times to make sure everything was ok.
I had the vermicelli with egg rolls and grilled pork. Like J. L said, the food was alright. not the best nor the worst. It didn’t feel as authentic either since it was lacking certain vegetables (minus 1 star). The pork was a bit on the saltier side. Eggrolls were just regular pork eggrolls, nothing special.
I ordered in vietnamese and she ended up messing up my order. She thought i wanted the vermicelli with grilled pork and egg rolls on the side. When the eggrolls came out, I told her and she fixed the order. That’s still minus 1 star.
Lastly, I was overcharged a dollar (the dish was suppose to be 6.95). I didn’t complain because I felt bad for the misorder, but this still shouldn’t have happened. Minus 1 star.
I’ll give it another shot and try their other dishes; hopefully things will go smooth next time.

I work in RB and sometimes crave for a quick, warm and soupy lunch. Bamboo Fresh seems to do the trick. Food is reasonably tasty (not the best I had, but definitely far from the worst). I suppose since the target audience is the office folks around, its not super authentic. However, service is nice and people are friendly. Bit on the pricey side though…
Overall not bad! One more option to the various restaurants in that plaza. Nice alternative to Akai Hana.