Clay Pot Restaurant

We thoroughly enjoyed our Beef Pot and fried noodles. Service was very good. We loved the dumplings. Only drawback is the restrooms are labeled in Vietnamese and took a moment to understand, lol

Fresh, made to order food in a great atmosphere… staff is always friendly and informed

Love this place. Food is fantastic, affordable prices, nice atmosphere. My only complaint is they charge for every extra thing. For example… want sauce to dip your egg roll in? Extra. want to substitute broccoli for mushrooms? extra

The food here is inedible, gross and disgusting. On our way to Austin, we wanted to stop for dinner at a local place in Waco that had good Unilocal ratings. The food at Clay Pot is NOT in the least bit authentic, Vietnamese cuisine! I know authentic Vietnamese food when I see it because I am Vietnamese! I’m insulted they call this a Vietnamese restaurant – how embarrassing for the owner of this craptastic dump.
This is clearly a college hangout where the kids don’t know or appreciate real Vietnamese food (thus the almost 4 star rating). No real Vietnamese restaurant has Japanese style floor seating, lmao! Weird.
The egg rolls were so greasy and the meatballs in the phở tasted so strange. This is just the tip of the iceberg as I could go on and on and on about the foul crap they served us. We barely ate anything we ordered and I’m so angry we wasted a penny here! Never, never, never ever again would I step foot in this dump. You are way better off going through any of the local fast food chain drive thrus than dining at Clay Pot. I feel so much better after wasting $ 40+ by leaving this review. I’m absolutely revolted by this place!

Everything I’ve tried so far is good, and it almost gives an authentic feel! I know Asian food well! The only reason I’m giving 4 instead of 5 is because it feels dirty in here, there’s flies and it almost feels damp.

This place was amazing. I had the shrimp fried rice with a little spice. The waiter was very helpful since this was our first trip here. My friend got the chicken clay pot and she was very impressed as well. We also both tried the peach tea. It was good too.

Only had the boba tea, but it was so good! Manager delivered the boba tea outside to my friend and I because it was very crowded in the restaurant. Can’t wait to try their actual food!

Clay Pot has the sit on the floor style eating !

Not that great of food. The phở was just not phở. Believe me, my mom’s phở is so much better. I’ve eaten here twice and both times the phở have given me endless hours of stomach pains. The bubble teas were very milky like more whole milk than the actual flavor and the tapioca pearls were hard. Never going back.

I am accustomed to eating at the family-​owned Vietnamese restaurants in the Houston area. When I found out a place in Waco served Phở and Bun Bo Hue, I was excited. My expectations weren’t super high for it being Waco, but I was still disappointed.
First impression: the place is very dark and the tables are sticky. I can’t tell just how filthy the place actually is because it is so dark. The décor isn’t Vietnamese. It looks like a white guy was told «make this place look asian!» and so he threw pillows on the ground for people to sit on and random Chinese decorations on the walls. The whole décor scheme is cheesy and makes no sense. I knew from walking in that this place wasn’t authentic… let’s see how the food is.
I ordered phở. I’ve had phở at a number of different places and it’s pretty consistent restaurant to restaurant. Not here. The phở has the wrong type of noodles, too many of them, and they were cut into little pieces. The broth is the best part of the soup, and they just didn’t get it right. It’s as if they tried to compensate for the flavorless broth with a bucket load of noodles. The meat was cut too thick and very tough and dry. You’ll have better luck with instant phở, and instant phở is pretty bad.
Don’t take any asian people here, they will cry.

Great place to stop off for a quick lunch if you are on your way from Austin to Dallas. Try the dumpling soup or Bun Xao lunch special. Comes with spring roll and once tea. Would definitely stop here again if passing through Waco, Texas.

My experience at this humble, tiny, little place was surprisingly good. Not just the service was great but the food (and prices) are also very very good.
I’m glad I came to this place and definitely will come back.

My family and I have been going to the Clay Port for I don’t know how long. We went there for lunch today, which prompted me to post my opinion. By now I have tried 95% of the items on their menu and have yet to be disappointed. My personal favorites are the Curry Clay Pot and the Phở Ga. Let me tell you, there is something magical going on with the Phở. Any time I feel under the weather, I get a bowl of Phở and somehow I’m back to normal in a couple of hours.
We always like to start with the steamed dumplings that come with an amazing dipping sauce. I recommend them. The spring rolls are great too, and come with a peanut based dipping sauce.
They have a selection of adult beverages, including Sake. Or if you just want a beer, they’ve got you covered. They have two TVs always on so if you are into sports it’s a good place to unwind at the end of the day, have a meal, a drink and catch part of a game. My wife and I have gone there for lunch because a) we wanted Vietnamese food and b) a day game was on. Win win.
They have decorated the place well and offer seating at regular tables or shorter tables with seat cushions on the floor. We notice a lot of Baylor kids like to sit on the floor around these tables and kick off their shoes. Thankfully, so far, people that sit there seem to have clean feet and socks.

It’s the best Vietnamese in Waco, and as a bonus they have a variety of pan-​Asian favorites. We liked our chicken clay pot and pan fried noodles dishes. A number of dishes can be made with tofu, so they’re vegetarian friendly. But also wallet friendly. The atmosphere is cozy, casual, dim, and quaint. They have chair and floor seating. The complementary Unilocal check-​in dessert was a very small piece of cheesecake.

People must not know what good is if they think this place is good. The entry way smells like bleach, but the inside of the restaurant smells like stinky feet. Probably since they let people eat sitting on the floor but require them to take off their shoes. It’s awful smelling in there. I came to just order a smoothie and it must have been made all from powder and not real fruit. It tasted like dirt and it was expensive too. The teapoica was over cooked and hard. I would absolutely not recommend this place nor would I return here.

My husband and I were driving from Dallas back home to Austin, and were extremely hungover. We decided that bowls of phở could cure our ailments and make a quick lunch. Clay Pot was the only Vietnamese restaurant in the area, so we decided to give it a go. We made a terrible mistake, as we experienced the worst phở of our lives.
Cloudy, tasteless, and sprinkled with some Korean pepper seasoning, the phở dug our hangovers deeper into our souls. We both had the Phở Tai, which is the rare sliced beef option. It was cut too thick and tasted old and livery. The restaurant also did not offer herbs or condiments to customize the soup. The most annoying thing about the phở were its noodles — the wrong kind and cut into small pieces. As a Vietnamese American, I was embarrassed that they called this place a Vietnamese restaurant.
The restaurant is dark and dingy, and for some reason they close all the blinds. A strong chemical scent wafts through the space, permeating our clothes and being a nuisance. The décor is confusing as there is no Vietnamese influence, only Chinese and Japanese designs are reflected in the décor. The odd seating arrangement, similar to Japanese floor seats, is weird and not akin to Vietnamese culture.
Clay Pot would make a fantastic candidate for the shows Restaurant Impossible and Kitchen Nightmares. I hope that the restaurant evaluates their cuisine offerings for the sake of their business, because their phở is a let down. We enjoy dining at small, family run restaurants, but this place felt like a sham.
Thanks for nothing, Clay Pot.

It’s summer and Baylor is out, so it’s a quiet night at the Clay Pot with lots of local families. Fried chicken dumplings were served fast, and were hot, crisp, and full of flavor. They were a touch greasy, but not too bad. The curry chicken was a nice combination of spices, unusual, and the garlic chicken was OK, but a little soggy and too sweet for my taste. Overall, it was fast, hot, fresh, well prepared and tasty. Good student food. This is different than any Vietnamese food I have had in 20 years of enjoying this cuisine, different flavors, sauces, spices. It’s good, but probably not what you are used to, so keep an open mind. They are open till 10 and have daily specials. Oddly enough they also have pretty good baklava.

This review is only for the bubble tea.
My friend and I were driving to Dallas from Austin, and we both enjoy drinking bubble tea during long drives. We were in the middle of the drive so we figured if any city in between would have it, it would be Waco. It’s right off the highway which makes it a very convenient location. They claim to have the best bubble tea in Central Texas, but they’re probably only the «best» because there’s nothing else.
They have a drink menu which includes teas and bubble teas. They’re $ 4 each which is pretty pricey but it does come in a larger cup. We ordered thinking we were going to be getting drinks, and I asked mine to have less ice. The next thing we know, she’s adding milk, then adding ice, then blending them, and we have in front of us smoothies. Bubble tea is NOT the same thing as a smoothie. A bubble tea is a tea with tapioca. A milk tea is tea with milk. A smoothie is when it’s blended with ice. This restaurant needs to learn the differentiation with these terms and fix their menu.
You do get a free mini cheesecake with Unilocal check-​in, but don’t be excited. It comes from Sam’s Club/​Costco (I know this because we used to buy it).

Great Phở place. They do things a little differently than I’m used to but I liked it.
The shrimp egg rolls were a little greasy but the flavor was good.
The Phở, what I came for was delicious. I like to add my own veggies usually but they do that for you here. I ordered phở with everything. A typical combo Phở, they don’t do that. They up charged for the extra ingredients, I got more than I paid for. Good meal.
I’ll be back. And a free cheese cake with check in.

Finally tricked a friend to come back here with me.
I opted for the Phở Ap Chao — it came with asparagus. Interesting since Vietnamese cooking doesn’t really have asparagus. The noodles were way too saucey and salty — over soaked in soy sauce. I poured a little of my cup of iced water into my noodles twice, and they were still too salty. Decided not to drown the dish in Waco water because the noodles were getting cold.
The iced coffee with tapioca was good! It tasted like my G7 instant coffee I buy at Asian supermarkets. And I’m pretty sure that’s what it was. On careful examination, there were undissolved coffee powder at the top of my cup near the cap. It highly resembled G7.
My friend got the sesame chicken, and it honestly seemed like they forgot to give him half of the chicken serving. It was good though — better than Panda-​like places, but I’m still mad at him for going to a «Vietnamese» restaurant and ordering Chinese takeout-​like food.
Overall — good addition to Waco, but definitely not authentic.