Ruby’s Kitchen

So it was my first time here, and though it wasn’t great it was decent. I asked the sever a few of his favorite meals, then decided upon the Pineapple Teriyaki Bowl with a side of Garlic Bread, then to drink a Strawberry Shortcake Shake
The shake was good. As for the Pineapple Teriyaki Bowl, the meat was cooked well, but I didn’t like the pineapple sauce as much as I thought I would. For the first few bites it was fine but then I felt overwhelmed, then the vegetables didn’t look too fresh and appealing. I would’ve preferred them on the side instead but that’s not what I got. Finally, the garlic bread wasn’t all that great, which I a bummer because I love garlic bread so much. Oh well
I won’t vote this place out completely. I’ll give them another shot. But I don’t think I’ll be ordering this meal again.

Place is dope! Service is quick and efficient :) The bun bo hue is really good. Tried their green crack (Thai green tea) for the first time. It’s refreshing, perfect drink for the Cali weather. Calvin sucks.

To the guy that served me: that bahn mi was excellent. Really hit the spot. But you work across the street from a campus that offers a degree in hospitality. Take some classes there, that way you know how to do your job

One of my favorite local restaurants. Their ribeye phở beats all other phở places hands down! As for fried rice… yeah I’ll take Ruby’s beef fried rice any day of the week. I’ve tried some of the other dishes and have never been disappointed. Of course a great meal wouldn’t be complete without an amazing drink and they have a special creation here. Green Thai tea (aka Green Crack: because it’s so deliciously addictive) is a must have if you’re in the area. Don’t have time to eat in? They are awesome about Togo and custom meals. (I have picky eaters so it’s always no this or that, add this or that) Top that off with unbeatable customer service. Yeah. I can’t say enough about this place. Make it must to eat here.

After trying many phở places, I have to say that this place isn’t that great. There is only chicken phở ($ 7) and ribeye phở ($ 8). Since there is only one kind of meat in each bowl with not many pieces of meat, it is pretty expensive. Other phở restaurants are cheaper, have bigger portions, and have more meat such as tendon or tripe. However, the soup was pretty good in that it didn’t taste like it was full of MSG.
Also, when I picked up the chopsticks, I found them very sticky and not washed well. I was a bit disgusted but I was curious to see whether the food would make up for it. It didn’t. I don’t know if I would want to come back again.

This is our first time to try this place and I saw the reviews on Unilocal has 4 stars so I assume that it shouldn’t be bad. However, I was wrong. We had a very late lunch today & we were starving & we ordered Rib eye phở, phở ga (chicken soup vermicelli), rib eye steak rice and all the orders that we had today were not good. The meat quality was not good. The chicken meat was frozen, the rib eye steak meat were way too dry and over cooked and the sauce was so salty. (It’s one of their speciality dish and I’m very disappointed). Rib eye phở had only few little pieces of meat and not good at all. All I want to say it’s not authentic Vietnamese food in SGB valley and its just a place for students to have a quick bite like fried food stuffs. First try and only once, we won’t go back there again. @@

Their Green Thai tea «green crack» was so bomb! I loved it! It was so good I didn’t want to share any with my boyfriend.

I mean I guess there isn’t a lot of Vietnamese food in the area. My gf got the Bo luc lac and she said was wasn’t bad but I tried it and felt it was a bit too salty. Also the chicken wings were salty too but pretty decent only thing that really bothered me was size of each wasn’t very consistent please see picture. Ranch was a bit watery but passion fruit tea was good? Pretty meh to me

Update: Green Tea Thai Tea was not my favorite. I tried it but it has this strange perfume-​like coconut taste to it. If you’re a fan of coconut you might like it. If you’re Vietnamese I would say the taste reminds me of lá da? Maybe đu xanh? Like mung bean? I can’t place it haha anyhow not a fan
I also got their Spring rolls to go and while the spring rolls were good. Nothing special. Three small pieces of shrimp with a huge amount of noodles and little slices of pork. The dipping sauce is also slightly too watery. It runs down the length of the spring roll. It seemed diluted. Also $ 4 for 2 rolls is kind of pricey. I probably won’t be repurchasing from what I got today.

I come here for the phở. Ruby’s Kitchen offers a modern variation of the traditional rainy day staple.
The broth is well done and balanced, and the quality of beef is better than most. The portions are moderately filling. Although not as cheap as other local phở alternatives, the quality is well worth it. Do try!

Great food, drinks are tasty. It was raining today, my husband and I were craving warm soup. Had the spicy beef phở OMG Totally hit the spot. Thai tea was yummy. The guys here are fast and friendly. Place gets pretty busy

This place is one of my favorite food stops in Walnut. The spicy beef soup is amazing. The service here is also very welcoming and kind. I originally came across eating here when my boss gave me a recommendation to try the food here as it is one of his favorites. I ordered the ribeye phở which as well was very delicious. The broth, the noodles and everything was perfect.
I recently have been ordering the spicy beef soup since I prefer soups more than anything else. The soup is really delicious and I would bring anyone here for lunch at any time. If you’re in the area, take a stop by and order some food, it’s amazing here and I’m sure the whole menu is equally as good!

I love everything about this place. The food is fresh and flavorful. My menu faves are the Banh Mi, the Ribeye Phở, & the Spicy Beef Noodle Soup (Bun Bo Hue). My drink faves are the Passion Fruit Ice Tea & THE GREEN THAI ICED TEA!
Pluses: FREE WIFI, they play a great selection of EDM, & the employees are super chill & laidback.

I usually really enjoy take out here for lunch but today, was less than what I expected.
Service– the lady that picked up the phone was really pushy and rude. I understand its probably busy due to the lunch rush but you’re probably chasing away customers with that tone of voice and attitude.
Food– Chicken banh mi was really oily as well as the soup (usually its pretty good).
Coffee– overpowering and way too strong today.
Take-​out– Usually the guys who work here package everything nicely so that it doesn’t spill but this lady did not wrap the soup so it spilled in my car. She also did not give me any utensils or napkins. (wtf?) She also did not offer any hot sauce or anything (I live for hot sauce)
I’m probably going to avoid coming here for a long while after my experience today.
Rant over.

This place is pretty close to Mt. SAC. I don’t go to Mt. SAC, I just thought I’d mention it.
This place has a pretty solid choice for Bun Bo Hue, beware: it took like 10 minutes to cook. At first taste: Not bad. The soup was opaque and flavorful with a dash of spice that recruited my taste buds and sent them to boot camp. In fact: delicious.
Dude, the meatball. The meatball was weird! Then it was interesting, and it ended up being good (wha?). Never have I been through a roller coaster of emotions with food… Then I had this meatball. Fish meatball. An internal cycle of incrimination and recrimination was spun in my head. It gets the thumbs up for me.
Maybe a bit spicy, but maybe I like a little kick. Also, thank heaven lime exists, it really took the edge off the soup. Good soup, good meatball, good lime.

As an avid lover of bun bo hue, I was so excited to find out that a restaurant near me supposedly serves legit bun bo hue!
I came here once before to try it and they were like sorry, we close at 7pm. I looked at the time… about 7:10pm. What the hell… this places closes insanely early for a restaurant so keep that in mind if you plan to eat here.
The bun bo hue soup itself was pretty good. It was spicy and flavorful. There was also an abundant amount of thick noodles. The only problem was that I felt like the noodles were a bit undercooked so they were too hard and «al dente» for my preference. My solution is either ordering the bun bo hue to-​go, coming home, and just heating it on the stove for like 5 extra minutes… or asking them to cook the noodles a bit more when ordering.
I also liked that they gave me extra sate sauce to add into the soup. I tried it out and it definitely kicked up the flavor.
Overall, I’m pleased to find out I can satisfy my bun bo hue cravings with only a quick 1 minute drive. I took off 1 star just because of the undercooked noodles but for just a decent amount of food for only $ 7 (crazy cheap!!), I can’t complain too much.

Hell hath no fury like an angry chef with a hot sauce bottle in hand.
At least, I can only imagine the chef was angry, cause that’s how the spaghetti tasted: angry.
Sure, it was a HUGE portion with tons of meat and the garlic bread was nice, but the chili, there was so much, it was unbearably spicy for me. Maybe I’m a wuss, I don’t think so, since I regularly enjoy Sriracha and other chili sauces, but they should rename dish as the «I HATE YOU SPECIAL». I couldn’t enjoy the taste of the food because my lips and tongue were on fire and my nose and eyes were watering.
Revenge is a dish best served spicy.
Ye be warned.

I’ve been wanting to check out the bun bo hue here for a while since a lot of people have mentioned it and it’s a dish that I can’t seem to find as phở. Although there are some restaurants that also serve it, something always seems a bit off.
Since Rubys is a fusion restaurant, the bun bo hue is a bit different in the meats. There were lean thin slices of beef and beef balls. I was kinda bummed about it at first because I actually like the pork hock that comes in bun bo hue traditionally. The soup was very flavorful and they gave extra satay to make it spicier. They even checked in on me to make sure that the spiciness was to my liking. The noodles were perfect as well, which I noticed can be off when ordering this dish. Some places are too hard or soft, but this was just right. The beef was decent, but what really stood out for me was the beef balls. They were so delicious! Definitely home made and a pretty decent sized larger, perhaps oval meatball cut in half. It was very fresh. I might even get extra next time it’s that good. I also got an order of fried egg rolls which were just ok.
Some set backs are this place is located next to Mt. Sac so parking can be difficult. Also they close rather early due to the school area being kinda dead at night which makes it hard to make it over for dinner if you don’t work or live near this area. They do take to go orders though. Closed on Sundays. I’ll definitely be back to try their phở.

Let me start with the good about this place. I know it’s in a center that has a lot of other food options reasonably priced for college students. I believe their take is interesting and pretty decent. However, there are a lot that could be improved to make this place much better especially during summer time when most students are on break.
Here’s the issue I have, when you first walk in, there is a smell. It’s like something is not clean, a little like garbage. You know when you don’t run your garbage disposal like you should and it starts to have that smell? That’s basically what it smells like. I had their spicy beef. I have a higher tolerance for certain spices but this wasn’t spicy at all not even when I added almost all the satay that was given to me on the side. I love the dish. I bought bbq pork banh mi with veggies on the side plus garlic fries. Urgh! The garlic fries were so good I had to eat it all that night when I got home! The next day, I ate the sandwich but that was were I was reminded of that stench. So not sure what it is but needs a cleanup for sure not that I saw much dirt just there is an odor which is effecting the food taste.

I finally got to have a date lunch with SO and decided to go to this shopping center for options. We wanted to check out Chop Chop Grill but it was closed on Good Friday. So, our obvious choice was Ruby’s Kitchen. We noticed there weren’t a lot of seats but found the last one available. There was only one waitress. It meant slower service but she was overly apologetic for the delays. She was a great waitress, taking our order of chicken phở and an order of beef and rice with egg loaf. The beef was really flavorful and the phở broth was delicious. I ended up eating most of my dish (shared with SO) and half his phở. There was also never-​ending iced tea that had a bit of passion fruit flavor. Glad they added some flavor rather than just tea for free refills.
I did NOT like that they didn’t have any flavored green/​red teas available as well as milk teas. I really was craving a honey red tea. That’s about HALF the drink menu. On a friday lunch rush. Poor form.