Saigon Restaurant

Pretty pathetic if you ask me. Hated this place from the start to finish. Start-​ing with the massive staircase you have to walk down to get to the place – I really felt like I was on my way down to a sewage plant. Enough said, the phở there is crap and the ingredients were just blah. Soup itself was tasteless, side veggies were completely old and wilted, I have absolutely no recommendations for this place.
The service was pleh. I was wanting a small meal but without the set of 4 eggrolls they had and they wouldn’t accommodate reducing it to a single order. Nonetheless, I really hate it when restaurants ask you for cash just to save themselves a buck or two from bank transactional fees. Anyways, not tentative and simply nothing special about it.
Dishes ordered: Phở (the first one on the list and the last one I will ever have from this place)

This place is ok if you are really craving phở. The fried rice there is really good but I have had better phở. The salad rolls are good here. Good location and quick service. Not my first choice for viet food but I wouldn’t be opposed to going again.

I went here after a long day with a friend who kept on telling me great things about this place. Needless to say I was underwhelmed. The broth wasn’t too flavorful, and the service was meh. To sum it up — I’ve had better.

We were hankering for some sort of noodles and/​or rice while wandering Pike’s Place. This wasn’t a great choice. It’s a little hole in the wall that is coasting off of it’s location and not its food.
I’ve had worse, but there are plenty of other places to eat in that area.

My coworker and I are on a constant search for good phở within walking distance of our job on 4^th and Blanchard, thus we tried Saigon Restaurant.
Tofu and veggie phở:
The broth was bland, the noodles were soggy, the portions were small, the service was standoffish and they didn’t have a single bottle of Sriracha in the whole restaurant. Pair that with the absence of fresh jalapenos on the prep plate and you have the perfect recipe for Blah.
I give them two stars: The first because, sadly, it’s better than anything else we’ve found around here (that place on third and pike is even worse). The second because they share the room with an ice creamery, so after you eat your phở and feel thoroughly bad for yourself for being robbed of a good meal, you can comfort yourself with cookies and cream ice cream on a waffle cone.

While wandering around Pike Place, I came across Saigon Restaurant. It’s near the Bavarian Market.
I ordered a bowl of wonton noodles because I’d been craving wontons for a while though I probably should have ordered the phở since I was at a Vietnamese joint.
It was fairly late in the afternoon so there was only one other couple. They got their food pretty quickly but my food took a while. The cook took a break to eat her own food and the guy who took my order assembled my food.
The eggrolls I ordered were not great. The filling was very mushy. The sauce added very little to it but I appreciated they were freshly (re)fried.
As for my noodles, it didn’t satisfy that wonton itch which is how I ended up filling up on chowder elsewhere a few minutes later.

Bleh.

I just returned from a hot afternoon at Pike Place Mkt. I had the fresh spring rolls. Service did not exist. As soon as the order came out off my mouth, the guy behind the the counter said that they were out of the dipping sauce, and that the single bowl of peanut dipping sauce was already called for. I looked at the sad peanut sauce and then looked back at him with, «I cannot order this with the traditional fish sauce? He said, «huh, yeah». Next… for here or to go? For here. Have a seat anywhere.
Even at the table, everything appeared self service. NO NAPKINS again!
I saw a lady pull my prawns from the fridge to go into my rolls. It looked like she was preparing it while standing with her upper body in the fridge. Mr. Wonderful flew by and plopped the sad plate of 2 sad looking rolls beside a dipping bowl of orange-​color sauce. No sign of spices in the sauces. I hurriedly went for the hoisin sauce. No hoisin sauce. The rolls a make I home looks even better. No effort here!
My bill for 2 sad rolls =$ 4.00 Robbery (if u saw the size & appearance of these things)
I was so disappointed, I ate at all of the following places immediately after running from Saigon Restaurant:
Tuna Salad at Pike Deli, Chicken Hombow (waited 20min), Pam’s Kitchen (45 min). All of the locations following Saigon’s was 10 times better.

How is this place getting such high reviews? $ 6 for a TINY bowl of phở with a miniscule amount of beef, $ 5 for a Viet sandwich (and soda), when they normally cost $ 1.75 from a place in Chinatown.
I thought I could trust the reviews on Unilocal about this place but this is the first time I’ve found the SEA-​Yelp community to be wrong.
The phở broth was tasteless. It could be better described as water with a bouillon cube. The noodles were too cold; the meal quickly became room temperature. The beef was decent but too small a portion. There were no options for even brisket+beef ball either. I know this is not a true phở joint, but even the sandwiches were incredibly disappointing too. A tiny amount of BBQ beef tucked deep into the crevice of the bread (which wasn’t too bad, crunchy and somewhat warm)…I had to dip the sandwich into some of the sweet fish sauce to get some more flavor into it.
The somewhat saving grace was the mediocre fried egg rolls. They were pretty cheap but still too small for the price.
Save your money and eat elsewhere. This place fails as a restaurant, fails as a lunch counter, and generally fails as place to spend your hard earned dollars.

You like Phở? (say Fuh!)
Do you like good Vietnamese food? Well go here! All food is made order by a nice family run operation in the heart of the Pike Place Market. Decent prices and good portions. Tasty!
I like sitting at the counter. Tables available as well. Cash only… good for them!

If you are in Belltown and craving banh mi — don’t despair! Head over to the Pike Place Market and the good folks at Saigon Restaurant will cook you up one of the best Vietnamese sandwiches you’ll ever taste.
Sitting at the counter and watching your meal being prepared is quite a treat. It’s more like you are at someones home who just decided to whip up lunch for everyone. Everything is made to order and fresh. Unfortunately that means a pretty long wait before you can get your sandwich, eh, well, good things come to those who wait.
As others have mentioned. It’s not easy to find. Here are some hints. Look for the knife sharpening store on the east side of the market. Walk behind the old timey soda fountain, and there you have it!

It’s not as hard to find as I would have expected. Going in the Stewart house off of Pike Place it’s at the end of the hall on the left. It shares a big space with another counter, which I assume is the candy counter Sara speaks of.
There are a bunch of tables, there was plenty of seating in the early afternoon, and a bar as well. I ordered at the register and they brought my food to me. There is a little courtyard outside, you could probably take your food there on a nice day. I haven’t seen anyone use it yet as it’s still been a little cold but I expect it gets busy in the summer.
Pretty regular vietnamese options, but they’re all listed in english, order by type of meat (including tofu, there’s a good half dozen or more vegetarian options). Looks like they have Banh Mi too, although they just called it a vietnamese sandwich, possibly catering to the tourist crowd, who was all that was there while I was eating.
Cash only, no real table service, but the tofu curry dish was good and it was a quiet corner to eat in.

Good enough for my cousin, good enough for me! Recommended!