White Shallot

Pros:
— Interesting flavors and concepts
— nice atmosphere
Cons:
— dishes lacked execution
— prices on the higher-​end given the quality
To preface, the waiter told us that they were short 2 people, so maybe that’s why we had a subpar experience. There was only one person manning the entire front of the house – 10+ tables – so understandably it took awhile to get seated and put in our orders.
We got the Hanoi Shrimp Cakes to start, which were a little different than what I imagined. The yam fries were a nice touch, but the ratio of fry to shrimp was way too much fry.
For the entrée, I got the Saumon aux Amandes. The salmon was slightly over cooked, and the char on the salmon lacked the flavor necessary to offset the texture. The almonds were generously sprinkled on as a garnish, but they didn’t add much to the dish. The vinaigrette on the salad had a tangy sweetness that I really enjoyed.
Bottom Line: Would be willing to go back since there’s a lot of potential, but there are a lot of other restaurants that are a higher priority.

Escargot here some of the best I’ve ever had. The croque madame is also wonderful, as is the classic French onion soup.
Love that you can order French or Vietnamese dishes. Have had dishes from both sides of the menu and they are equally strong. Not a fusion spot, so each side features traditional cuisine.
On the Vietnamese side, I like the crab asparagus soup, shaking beef, and sea bass clay pot.
If there are specials, don’t hesitate to try them, and never leave without having the phenomenal passion fruit crème brûlée.

I am a fan really. I have tried the Saumon Aus Amandes and I order everytime I go there. I need to try other dishes to really sample all the French/​Vietnamese fusion. Food here is great, the layering of the flavors are great. I will try the Vietnamese side before I leave for Austin TX. Maitre’ D Jared is really great and also his sister. They have French wine which goes great with the entre’s. Great place to eat and relax. Not too stuffy. C’est bon.

It’s been several years, but I finally got a chance to meet up with some girlfriends for a mom’s nite out dinner!
It was super cold the nite we were there, so I found myself ordering the wild mushroom bisque to warm up, and then the Pan Rice Noodles with shrimp for my dinner. Everything was absolutely DELICIOUS, and so well prepared. My entire table loved their dishes as well.
So nice to see that nothing has changed since I was here last, back in 2009! The service, the atmosphere, and food were absolutely wonderful. I definitely look forward to coming back for a much needed date nite soon with my husband!

Great service. Super varied and tasty menu. Overall very successful and enjoyable dinner.

This is a review well in the making.
I have to admit I haven’t tried a single thing on the Vietnamese menu, I hope to one day, but the french food is too amazing.
I can imagine that with a large group this restaurant might be overwhelmed, it’s a tight ship with not a ton of servers, but the service given is excellent. I really want to try more of the Viet menu, with the ingredients being used for the french side I can only assume the quality of the Vietnamese side of the menu is pretty wonderful.
I’ve been here multiple times, ordered as many different things as possible, and the quality on the french side of the menu is near some esteemed french restaurants I’ve been to.
Next time I am going to make sure I visit the right side of the menu and just ignore the delicious amazingness on the left to make sure I can review the rest of the menu.
tldr; get a croq madam shitz yummeh.

Everything here is amazing. This place deserves much higher ratings.
It’s French and Vietnamese cuisine so half the menu is French and the other half is Vietnamese.
Started off with a GRILLED SQUID appetizer. Super tender and delicious ginger sauce that goes with it.
AVOCADO SHAKE is heavenly. Not too sweet. I can drink this everyday.
DUCK breast is amazing.
SPICY LEMONGRASS CHICKEN super flavorful
The FRESH LIMEADE is so refreshing

One star is too much for this place. You want to experience the worst service ever, then this place is the winner. It took 40 minutes to bring the drinks, by drinks I mean coke and sprite, when I asked why is taking this long the waiter said they only have one chef and chef is responsible for the drinks. They messed up our order after waiting for 95 minutes for our food we asked for a check for appetizers and drinks and just left. You will ruin your evening if you come here. Beware.

White Shallot is a gem. For years I’ve been enjoying the culinary creativity of ‘Chef’ and her wonderful crew. I love the Vietnamese/​French menu they offer. They never seize to amaze me and offer exceptional consistency in their dishes and beverages, and service. The atmosphere is cute, comfortable, quaint and clean. The staff is proper, knowledgable and friendly, comparable to that at more exquisite restaurant. You get a significantly higher quality meal and better value here compared to other Thai, Asian and sushi, and other restaurants in this market. The quality of ingredients is very high, such as Organic Chicken, Chromatic Coffee (I witnessed chef buying bulk coffee for the restaurant and Chromatic), and some wild fish and poultry selections. My mouth is just watering writing this!
Check out a few of my favorite recommendations below.
Vietnamese coffee (hot & iced)
Lemongrass Chicken (awesome!!)
Beef Phở (the finest Phở out there!)
Shepherds Pie
Garlic and white wine Mussels
Tarragon Chicken with Egg Noodles
Almond crusted Salmon (other’s favs)
**Most of their soups and weekly specials are delicious, and worth the higher price tag.
Thank you, WS! Your attention to detail and quality is greatly admired, and you have made a patron for life. See you soon!
Enrique & the entire Audi crew!

So we came here for father’s day and the food wasn’t bad — it was the service. I understand that sometimes a place isn’t able to handle a large crowd, but the restaurant didn’t seem that busy at all (no wait/​line for tables).
We were only allowed one basket of bread while we waited for our food — which took over 1.5 hours to get. We got in at 6, ordered our food at 6:30 (after waiting for menus to become available). Our appetizer (escargot) didn’t arrive until after 7pm. Then, our entrees didn’t come out until 7:30/7:45.
The food wasn’t bad, but service was super slow and wait staff didn’t clear our plates or check on us at all.
I won’t be coming here again anytime soon.

Went here for dinner a week ago. Started off with the mussels. They use large mussels and it tasted good but unfortunately about 20% of them were unopened so we had to throw them out (it is not recommended to eat mussels that don’t open after cooking because it usually means the mussels were already dead before cooking). The baguette that came with it was good.
The mushroom bisque was lacking. When getting a bite of mushroom, it tasted good but the cream wasn’t flavored enough to stand on its own so when I got a bite without mushroom, it was bland. They either need to flavor it better or add more mushroom.
The duck came out as a flambé and had a great wow factor. It tasted as good as it looked and I recommend this dish.
The lamb chops were cooked to the correct temperature but the flavors were lacking. It was crusted but inside was bland and didn’t have a strong lamb flavor, which is preferred by some, but not me. I would pass on this dish.
The flambé crêpe was nice. The flambé cartelized the sugar on top of the crêpe giving it that nice toasted taste. I liked this.
The service was lacking. There were two guys out front. Our server was working all the tables while the other one chatted with two tables almost the entire time we were at dinner. So it was difficult to get their attention to ask for anything. It took over 30 minutes for our appetizers to come out after ordering. Don’t come here if you don’t like to wait.
Overall, the food was good with a few strong points and a few areas to improve. Service needs to be adjusted (the talker needs to change jobs and work at a call center) so customers can get reasonable service.

I have been here over the years as its gone through different owners and possibly chefs. Actually had a company going away party in 2010. Overall, consistently enjoyed them food and the service has always been polite.
It had been a while since I had gone there again and so went by a month or two ago. Walked in and a lady, presumably the waitress, lazily yelled from the cash register us to give her a few minutes. Next she comes around, ignores us, and serves a few of the sitting customers. The place is half full with lots of tables for 2 but SHE wants to give us a booth. Does not bother getting a booth ready and runs around taking orders from the seated customers and checking on them. It’s been 5 minutes … and counting.
I look at her, engrossed in her cash register again, and I am off! Too bad — 2 stars for my previous experience or I’d have given it a 0.

The duck is awesome! A must visit when in Santa Clara. Don’t pass up the passion fruit crème brûlée, it’s out of this world delicious.

Dinner for 2.
— Ambiance (³⁄₅)
Clean and comfortable, though kind of spartan. You’re not quite sure if you’re entering a fine dining establishment or something just below (i.e., paper napkins instead of cloth)
— Service (⁴⁄₅)
Only 1 server for the entire restaurant seemed like it would have been inefficient, but it was fine. He did forget a couple things more than once, but he obviously had a lot on his plate.
— Bread (¹⁄₅)
They gave us a few shrimp crackers plain, which just felt very unsubstantial.
— Sour Shrimp Soup, $ 7 (¹⁄₅)
Rarely do I not finish soup, but this one was really odd. Very little flavor development in the broth (just one note sour). It also became cloyingly sweet with the addition of pineapple. Other ingredients also weren’t really seasoned (including the shrimp). It almost seemed as though ingredients were boiled separately, then dropped into the broth. The soup could have used a healthy dose of salt/​spice to balance out the flavors.
— Beef Short Rib, $ 24 (⁴⁄₅)
Very tasty broth for dipping. Oddly, they brought a bread basket for this entrée. I appreciated it, definitely, but I might’ve liked a different kind of starch for this? Potatoes come to mind? The beef short ribs are the right cut of meat, on the bone, which I really liked. It just could have been braised a bit longer, as the meat wasn’t quite falling off the bone, like a good braised short rib should do.
— Value (³⁄₅)
Soup is egregiously overpriced. Entrée is quite reasonable.
— Final Word
I think it’s worth exploring other options on this menu – it is quite disparate (literally French on the left side, Vietnamese on the right side). I would have given it 4 stars for the short rib, but the misstep on the soup was just too much to overlook.

Soupe a l’Oignon for lunch. The toasted gruyère cheese was good in terms of flavor yet very gooey and cheesy. The chicken broth needs to be stronger and the caramelized onions were slightly burnt, which subtly overtakes the chicken broth flavor. With a blend of sliced baguette that is camouflaged underneath the gruyère cheese, I’d say it’s nice to have it inside the soup. Yummy soup with delicious cheese but it probably can’t par with Panera Bread’s french onion soup tho due to flavor quality. ⁴⁄₅ stars.
Then as for dessert, I had the Profiteroles. It consisted of three pâté a choux pastries (cream puffs) sandwiched with french cookie ice cream and chocolate waffle on the side on top of chocolate sauce. The sweet french cookie ice cream and chocolate waffle were sweet and flavorful that goes in nice harmony with the darkness of chocolate sauce. I am surprised by how the dessert turned out. It’s pretty delicious. ⁵⁄₅ stars.
Whole experience — 4 stars since the waiter is kind and the dessert is yummy

A friend of mine was brunching here a couple of weeks ago and we stopped in to join.
We ordered:
Roasted Beets Salad
Grilled Squid
Croque Monsier– a classic
Croque Americaine– burger with crispy fries
They offered a lamb shank special that my friend ordered and it was amazing.
This restaurant is right next to the Subaru dealership, so a few days later when I took my car in… Croque Monsier for lunch!

We went here for Valentine’s Day and had the prefix menu. Everything was delicious! A bit pricey, but you get what you pay for. My favorite was the risotto with lobster and scallops. Presentation was beautiful and the server we had was great. However, there was an older woman, possibly the manager, who made me uncomfortable. She didn’t even serve us, but she was so rude to the other servers. It’s unprofessional to make loud rude comments to your employees right in front of your customers. The other servers were welcoming and attentive, what you would expect from a nice place like this.
Also it looks like one of their walls are being repainted? Not sure but it’s a bit of an eyesore. Also, since this is a Vietnamese/​French restaurant, it would have been nice to see some Vietnamese touch in the V-​day prefix menu. Everything was pretty much French. I wouldn’t mind coming back to try some of their Vietnamese inspired dishes. I hope that manager person isn’t there though.

We went to this place to get a fix on some french food after visiting Paris over Christmas. So we arrived 20 min before nine. The waiter took a lazy look around and said there was no table which was obviously not true. I asked him why couldn’t he put two tables side by side to accommodate us four so he complied.
The duck confit was disappointing. The duck leg was dry, over cooked, and totally tasteless. Onion was a goop mixture of onion and cheese. Phở was cold and small portion. Definitely won’t visit again.

I am a French who lived a decade in Asia… it’s a very interesting restaurant with quality dishes.
I can’t say it’s 100% french, but it does get very close to it. Dishes are well presented, tasty and made with fresh and quality ingredients.
The shaking beef (Vietnamese section of the dinner menu) is very interesting and surprising in terms of mix of flavors between the water cress and the cognac marinate used for the beef. Great fusion food!
Filet de boeuf (beef filet mignon, French section of the dinner menu) is perfect, identical to what I would cook at home… hehe
Service is good.
Ambiance and decoration… soso…nothing special.

I wanted to start out by saying that this place is not a fusion restaurant. The menu is literally split into 2 sides. One side is French and the other side is Vietnamese. So if you are looking for some crazy food combos, this is not the right place to look.
Also, the phở here is not the type of phở you usually get. This phở is Northern style, which is mostly about the broth. It is very simple, with little meat, and light garnishes. However, the broth is very strong. So if you are going here and expecting the Southern style, which is heavy on meat, garnishes, and other additions, then this is not the phở for you.
Now to my experience. I went here with some coworkers and this place was great. We are a pretty rowdy crowd so it was nice that we were the only people in the restaurant. Our server was really nice and very fast. He walked us through the menu numerous times because my coworkers kept asking him the same questions over and over again. Poor guy.
I ended up ordering the Sea Bass Clay Pot, which has sea bass, pork belly, and dried shallots in a caramel sauce all served in a clay pot. Now any time someone says sea bass and pork belly, my heart stops for a few seconds and praises God for that delicious food combo. When I took my first bite of it, oh my god, my taste buds went on a delicious journey and I did not want it to stop.
Our table also ordered a bunch of appetizers such as escargot, steamed mussels, Hanoi shrimp cake, and green papaya salad. All of which were pretty good. Nothing too exceptional, but all still good. Lastly, we ended our meal with some desserts. My favorite was the beignets, but we also ordered the profiteroles, and passion fruit crème brûlée. The crème brûlée was pretty good, but some of the ice cream flavors of the profiteroles tasted like dish soap. I think there was too much lavender extract in it.