Pho Cuu Long — Restaurant in Melbourne

UPDATE

I've since changed my score from 2 stars to 3.

Me and my fiancee went here the other night to eat it. I have to say, I love the menu because of its simplicity!! Most Asian places around here have colossal menus (not necessarily a bad thing), which can make choosing something a lengthy and complicated task! These guys have a pretty concise menu in comparison of just one double-sided board :)

After ordering and tasting the food, I have to say that it was absolutely fantastic and it was quite evident that it was tradition proper Vietnamese food.

So overall, I highly recommend stopping in to grab a bite to eat from here. Don't bother ordering for pick-up over the phone unless you speak Vietnamese and are happy to cook it yourself at home. If their service were improved, I'd be giving them 5 stars. I get the vibe that they don't really care about improving their service or catering to English-speakers - they've got their local community of Vietnamese regulars, they make awesome food and they know that people will just keep coming back for it. BEWARE ORDERING TAKE-AWAY!!!!!

They give you raw ingredients and you're expected to cook it yourself at home!!! Totally defeats the purpose of take-away!

I walked by this place the other day when looking for a Vietnamese place to get some chicken noodle soup for my fiancee and something for myself for lunch. I noticed this place, saw that it was packed and that it was packed full of Vietnamese - a good sign that the food would be good.

Unfortunately the customer service was less than ideal as the staff I interacted with barely spoke English.... Now I don't want to sound racist here, but I feel that any customer-facing business should be able to interact with customers in the national language of the country they are operating in. For example, I wouldn't move to Poland and open up an Italian restaurant if I wasn't fluent in Polish.

With difficulty I managed to place my order - Vietnamese chicken noodle soup and Vietnamese beef mince noodle soup. Take-away.

After about 5 minutes, I was given a bag and wish a great day. I went home, hungry and keen for some yummy Vietnamese. When I arrived home and opened the bag, you can imagine my shock at seeing all the raw ingredients to make the two soups with nothing cooked. The soup broth was in fact nearly frozen and looked more like a jelly!!

I called the shop back, said hello to the staff that answered (after she said hello, I imagined she could speak English) and explained the situation and my surprise. After explaining my situation, a male voice responded with "hello". I verified that he could speak and understand English and then went on to explain the whole story again! After explaining what had happened, he responded with "Oh, so you don't know how to cook at home?". I then explained that I had no idea what to do with those raw ingredients and that I expected cooked take-away meals that were ready to eat. He gave me step-by-step instructions on how to cook it and so I decided to try it myself. To be fair, he did offer for me to bring it back to the shop and he would cook it or could give me a refund. At this point I figured I may as well have a crack at cooking it myself.

While his instructions were tricky to understand with the language barrier, I understood enough to cook it.

The reason this is 2 stars and not 1 is because after cooking it and tasting it, it was really really nice!! The beef was of a high quality and very tasty. The broth was yum and the noodles were excellent. It had a real nice home-made kind of feel and quality to it (perhaps because I made it at home lol!!!).

Given the quality of the food, we might go and dine in there one night.

We certainly will never order take-away from there again though!!!! The least they could've done was at least provide warning that "take-away" for them meant that they give you just the raw ingredients and expect you to...

I wish I could give zero stars for this place, look what they put in the chicken? I've eaten lots of chicken in whole my life, but this is the first time I've seen the jelly was stuffed inside a chicken like in the photo. I asked the waitress why the chicken was like that, but she ignored my question and asked me, if I a person ate chicken regularly then I should know it was normal, but I told her I had eaten lots of chicken in my whole my life and this was my first time when there was jelly inside the chicken like that, that’s unacceptable, she rolled her eyes and apologized unsympathetically and then left with a grumpy expression. I thought she would go inside and tell the manager what happened so they would give me a reasonable explanation, but NO, NOTHING HAPPENED, after all I still paid full price for these dishes.

We almost ate a piece of stainless steel scourers that was found in the salad. Imagine if we swallowed that piece of stainless steel what would happen to my stomach, it would be very dangerous for children or the elderly accidentally eat them.

The tableware was dirty and I asked the waitress to exchange the new ones but they were still dirty, I think they were...

Honestly, Sunshine continues to amaze me despite its reputation. The rays are shining bright at this joint! I consider myself somewhat of a phoconnoisseur, and this place is authentic as it gets. His dishes are deeply flavourful. Texture and broth are always on point. I'm instantly transported back to my brief but memorable time on the bustling food streets of Ha Noi.

At affordable prices, I think I'm starting to become obsessed. Maybe I was Vietnamese in my past life... give this a try, especially for those uninitiated with the divinity that is...