Tan Thanh Loi — Restaurant in Melbourne

Update: Ordered Hu Tieu Do Bien - Seafood Rice Noodle Soup. Same soup base as the Special Rice Noodle Soup but with just seafood toppings plus rendered pork fat.

Still generous with their toppings but unfortunately today, we were immensely thirsty not long after.

Previous Visit: Take away - Hu Tieu DAC Biet (Special Rice Noodle Soup) which is the same as Hu Tieu Tom Thit (Meat, Prawn and Rice Noodle Soup) but with fish cake and squid added.

Still generous with their toppings. Still taste the same.

We now come here only for these noodles since their broken rice has been a disappointment.

New menu/pricing

Previous Visit:

Very, very disappointed.

Ordered No. 5 - Broken Rice with Shredded Pork, Grilled Pork, Meatloaf and Fried Egg.

This place used to really good for their Broken Rice. Of late, the size of the serves have been very inconsistent - depending on who puts it together and the pork chop is dry and markedly thinner than it used to be. The size of the meatloaf has shrunk. Recently, they have changed over to a smaller sauce bowl and getting less sauce as well.

Happy to accept price increases but not shrinking the serves as well. As you can see from the photos, we did not get the full generous serving as the other reviewers have described.

Do yourself a favour and scroll through previous reviews with photos and you’ll understand my gripe.

Ordered No. 10 - Meat, Prawn and Rice Noodle Soup

This is still the best so far that I’ve tasted. Unlike the Broken Rice which is prepared at the front of the shop, this dish is prepared in the back kitchen and they are very generous with their toppings. They have however replaced the sliced pork heart with chicken hearts which is definitely a no no in my book. And.. yes there is msg.

This place is not clean. It is very much an eat and leave straightaway kind of place.

If not for the noodle soup, I would have rated this...

Tan Thanh Loi situated in front of Little Saigon market and now it's hidden in the Nicholson street, Footscray due to the roadworks. The place is very humble looking style and very homey. The customer service was friendly and nice.

We ordered: Broken rice with half grilled chicken and pork for $12.00. Broken rice with shredded pork, grilled chicken, meat loaf and fried egg for $12.00. The broken rice was absolutely fantastic and fastly served in generous portion. Both pork and chicken were well marinated and grilled. The grilled pork and chicken were well seasoned and served warm. It was very tender, soft and balance taste. The shredded pork was also yummy and had balance taste as well. The meat loft wasn't the best but the taste was still average. Overall, it's really great value of dish for this quality.

Rice noodle soup with beef, prawn and vegetables for $12.00. Served warm in generous portion and great taste. Surely, you can share between two persons. The soup base had balance taste; It wasn't too salty, therefore we could enjoy the soup by itself. The beef and prawn served fresh and it was tender when you bite :)

Vietnamese Tricolor drink for $2.00. Presentation wise was great and appealing; Unfortunately, the taste was slightly disappointed. It was super sweet and very thick; It was different from what we had in the other Vietnamese restaurants.

Overall, the food was great value and taste but not the tricolor drink. We'd come back to this restaurant when we go to Footscray :)

Price: 4.5 Taste food: 4.5 Taste drink: 2.0 Service: 3.5 Speed: 4.5

Yay: Broken rice was absolutely fantastic & super delicious, homemade chilli oil was yummy Nay: Tricolor drink...

I swung by Tan Thanh Loi in Footscray today around 3 PM and it was surprisingly bustling, even with a 5 PM close time on the horizon. They’re known for their grilled pork cutlets and my partner and I were eager to try their broken rice and noodle dishes. However, our experience was a bit of a letdown.

First off, the service left much to be desired. The waiter, who seemed to be the only one handling the floor, could barely manage a smile and literally chucked the menus at us upon seating. Understandably, he appeared overworked and stressed, but it definitely impacted our welcome.

As for the food, we ended up waiting around 15-20 minutes, which felt longer as we noticed others who arrived both before and after us getting their food first. When my order did arrive, it was missing the shredded pork and the spring rolls, which only showed up later and weren't even prepped for eating! I had to ask the chef to cut them up, which really shouldn’t have been my job.

On the upside, the food tasted great once everything was sorted out. But it’s hard to ignore the recent price hike, which doesn’t really put Tan Thanh Loi in the best spot compared to other local spots offering similar dishes.

I think a little more staff could go a long way here. It’s tough to recommend a place when the wait times have jumped and the service has dropped. Given the tasty food, I’m going for three stars, but I hope they can turn things around with a bit more help...