Miss Saigon Vietnamese Noodle House Whyte — Restaurant in Greater Strathcona

TL:DR - Clean and well decorated restaurant, good pho for a comparable price, would come again.

I included that for those of you who don't care to read long drawn out reviews.

So lets get started, as I've been meaning to try this place out for a while, I always see it as I drive by or go to the pizza 73 but I've never gone. Well I decided that it was finally time for me to go and I sure was not disappointed. You see, I have an affinity for all things pho, ever since I discovered it when I was in grade 10 in high school, so I've been eager to try this place as it was close to home.

In any case, my first visit here was just as I had expected. The restaurant was fairly clean and had a good decor when I first walked in. As they seated me at a table, it was hurriedly cleaned, so they missed a spot which isn't a huge deal breaker for me because I'm all about the food and like I said earlier it looked fairly clean so I was on board. A quick glance at the menu made it feel like a travel tourism magazine for Vietnam, with glossy pages, facts and all. I decided on my go to order whenever I try a new pho place, which is usually the house special, and I also got a side of their spring rolls.

After the order was taken, I was able to see the cooks prepare the food with their large open kitchen off to the side of the restaurant. Which was kind of interesting. Upon looking around, I noticed that they had a large wall covered with names of people who had taken upon themselves their in house giant pho bowl challenge. The challenge which consists of 2 lbs of meat, 2 lbs of noodles and 1 gallon of broth seemed to much of a large undertaking for me to do in under an hour. If you're up for the challenge it'll cost you a hefty $50 for the supreme bowl. As I previously mentioned the many names on the wall were people who failed the challenge, and only a paltry 2 names were among those who succeeded. Unless you want your name on the wall of shame, or are incredibly confident in your ability to eat that much in 2 hours, then I'd advise to stick the with normal bowls of pho.

Not too long after I ordered, probably about 5-10 minutes max, my food came! I started with the spring rolls, which were about as good as you can expect from spring rolls. I found them to be very crispy and not too oily, just perfect for a small appetizer. I then started on the pho which was pretty large for a regular sized pho but nothing that I couldn't handle. The broth was rich and flavourful, and it was hot but I personally think it could have been a bit hotter to cook the rare sliced beef (it felt more cooked than I have grown accustomed to in pho dishes). All the usual fare of a house special was there beef balls, tripe, tendon, etc. This may sound gross to a person new to pho, and I myself was once one of those people. I gave it a try one time and I've never looked back.

The service was pretty good, checking often on whether I needed anything or water refills (a highly underrated point of attention to most servers). I paid and left feeling highly satisfied by my meal.

All in all, would recommend this place if you're ever craving a large bowl of pho. The hours on weekends extend till 4am for those late night pho cravings. 4/5 just because it was a good solid pho place, not the best I've ever had but probably up there on my list of places...

Would leave negative stars if I could. We used to be a regular here.

We purposely made a trip last night and ordered a total of four takeout meals. When we got home we saw three meals when we paid for four. We immediately called the restaurant to inform them of the mistake. The employee was very polite and apologetic but that was about all he could do. We asked if they could deliver the missing meal and his answer was that they don't have a delivery service and that he would get his manager to call us back

41 minutes later, we've finished our meals, and we get a call back from the same guy and he says they can now deliver it. We were still not at this point speaking to the manager, just the same guy who seemed to not be able to do anything for us. What are we going to do with a meal now that we've finished dinner? And why did they wait 41 minutes to even come to some sort of resolution and call us back?

After much back and forth the employee offered to credit us back the meal that was missing, only we had to drive back in order to get the credit. I made it clear we have zero intentions of making a trip back for a mere ten dollar credit. It would not have been worth our time and gas money for a mistake they made in the first place. I asked for a full refund of our entire meal at this point to which the employee said it was against protocol.

I asked again to speak to his manager and that's when I heard someone talking to the employee in the background. The manager. The man was in the background and didn't even have the decency to talk to me himself, rather having his employee deal with the situation. I heard him very rudely at one point say 'Well they can take their business elsewhere,' and 'Well where do they even live?!' Why does where we live matter? I asked AGAIN to speak to the manager at which point the employee said he was busy and not available. And that was when it went south because the manager was clearly there and had no decency to talk to me to come to a reasonable solution.

It is one thing to not be able to offer me a satisfactory solution, but another to talk in the background as such. If you are the manager (and I suspect also the owner in this case) it is YOUR responsibility to handle the situation rather than throwing your own employee into doing your job because you don't have the guts to handle a disgruntled customer as a result of your establishment's mistake.

To his credit the employee maintained his politeness throughout the entire call. But the service we were provided with that day from the MANAGER himself specifically was atrocious.

At this point I didn't even care for any refund. I just hung up.

We will NEVER be back to this...

Miss saigon is the best Pho place that I recommend. Even better than the ones deep within the city, inside WEM, and all other pho places combined, I highly recommend Miss Saigon for pho and Vietnamese cuisine lovers. The broth for their soup is just amazing, and the noodles are prepared well. I've been to a number of pho places but everytime the noodles are more than likely not soft enough for the broth and you'd have to wait for quite a while to have the noodles be at optimal slurping texture for you to enjoy, chewy and smooth to slurp. All the soup variations they have from their own special pho to the meatball pho all of them are pretty good. There is a kid size for those who can't finish a regular size, which is a helpful option. AND THE SIZES they are absolutely HUGE. They even have a challenge for the biggest size they have available. I gotta say it's absolutely massive. I haven't ordered it myself but I've seen people eat them and they are way waaaaay too big for me. Another thing to note is not just their pho. Their rice dishes and Vermicelli bowls are top-notch as well. Everything is fresh straight out of the kitchen. I do recommend trying out the eel bowl at least once because it's really, really tasty. A warning, though , does take a while to get to your table because they have to grill the eel which they douse sauce on, then they'll have it served on a stone bowl which keeps the temperature pretty hot for a long time so watch out for that. If you can't decide between rice, Vermicelli, or pho they even have an amazing menu option called the DoubleBowl which let's you combine any of the many options they have from pork cutlets on rice paired with their special pho, it's just a genius idea which csters to those people that can't decide whether they want pho or rice or something else, they say WHY NOT BOTH. All in all, I have a lot to say about Miss Saigon but the main takeaway from this is that it's the best Pho place out there and their open early in the morning up to late in the evening up until 1am!!! So if you're looking to satisfy your pho cravings even at late midnight, Miss Saigon has your back. Just be warned they are quite popular, so the servers will zoom wherever they can get, and the place gets pretty packed, so get reservations if you're looking to eat at night. Otherwise, you'll have to wait. Go to Miss Saigon and get your Vietnamese dish cravings...