Vietnam Noodle Star — Restaurant in Toronto

My wife and I were up for a bowl of Pho and this place is close to us, been living in the area for almost 20 years and this is first time to visit. I'm not gonna comment on the authenticity of the Pho, I'm not qualified enough to do that. However, for us and our experience with Pho it was still good. We ordered the chicken slices Pho, with Pineapple & Sausage fried rice along with shrimp curry malaysian style. It was too much food for us, we ended up taking the left over curry shrimp and the fried rice home. For curries, I'm not so much into the heat/spice so I always ask for mild, I'm after the flavor without so much the kick to the tongue in spice. Service was relatively quick. The servers/wait staff attitude and behaviour leave a lot to be desired. Place is quite spacious and the parking can fill up quite fast depending on the time of day you happen to visit. This place was more wallet friendly than Pho Vietnam. I'd say if you're on a smaller budget for dining out this is a good place to go with family or small group. Enjoy your meal, just don't pay attention or be to critical on the wait staff..since language is apparently an obstacle if you're an English speaking foodie dining here. We plan on going back, there are quite a few dishes that caught our interest. Oh just so you won't be caught off guard when you settle your bill, they do charge $0.25 convenience fee if settle with Debit card. No need to make a huge fuss over it since lot of Asian restos split or charge the whole merchant fee towards the consumer. Some Caucasian foodie aren't used to this practice.

Update : August 28,2017 Our second visit we ordered a small bowl of sliced beef Pho, Seafood Laksa 2 type noodles with curry soup and the Grilled squid. All were good, I really enjoyed the Seafood Laksa with 2 types of noodles.

Also, they don't seem to take Credit Cards. The extra business info has Credit card checked. Make sure you either have your Debit card handy or are packing Cash.

Update : Dec 22, 2021 Recently visited this resto again. Granted still during pandemic and social distancing. Prices have gone up for dine in restos I find.

We ordered : Small Cooked Beef Pho, Vietnamese Noodles and BBQ Squid.

Wifey enjoyed her Pho. I only tasted the Pho broth, since I can't eat beef due to gout. The Vietnamese noodles were also good. The BBQ Squid for $8.99 CAD, sorry, we found it not as enjoyable as to back in 2017-2018. Even tho I like squid, it's one of the seafood I can consume and not cause a reaction with gout flare up. The squid we had didn't seem completely cooked. Not enough char on it either. Tho for the Vietnamese Noodle dish, it seems steep priced at $13.99 CAD

Will still come back for other dishes tho, since it is cold weather now and Pho is comforting for...

Don't think this review will have any impact to the restaurant but whoever decide to eat here, can take it as a warning.

To be fair, the food was Ok, but the service was awful. After a long tiring day, my friend and I walked to this restaurant and hope to have a happy meal. But everything after that is just annoyed. We walked in at 10:25pm and wanted to dine in ( the restaurant closed at 11:pm), but they just did not want to serve us. I understood their difficulty because I have worked in hospitality industry as well so I promised that we would eat quickly and leave early.

Luckily, they let us in. Everything was so rush. I ordered two small bowls of House special Pho right away (didn't even have time to look at the menu). After 10 minutes, the food had come with the bills. The bills cost $24,87 which I believe included HST, service charge and tip because ( in the menu the price of 1 small bowls of Pho is $8.99 so two of small Pho: $8.99x2= $17.98), it is normal because many restaurant do the same thing. I paid $25 cash, after 2 minutes they came back with some change in a small black tray. I said they could keep the change and give them back the tray, but they BASH the tray back on the table and told me that I had to tips. I was so confused. I didn't know how much should I tip more, I asked them how much?, they said: 2 dollars, 2 dollars. We gave them 2 dollars and left right away. (did not have the mood to eat any more).

Well, I don't mind to tip more but I believe tipping should be willingly not pushing. If you guys restaurant want the tips so badly, you guys can put it in the bill and let the customers know at the first place. Don't think I am gonna come back to this...

In summary, the food was average, which was disappointing because a few years ago I remember the food being much better.

I ordered the House Special and wasn't really wowed by anything. The bowl was filled with a lot more noodle by a vast amount than the meat toppings. The broth itself was average, not very flavourful, but at least it wasn't bland. Overall, the food was not bad, but there are much better options out there.

The service, however, was probably what will deter me from returning again. Going to a Chinese establishment, you already expect the very basics of basic service: they'll bus the food and they'll bring you your bill. They make you write down your own order (common practice) and handing them the order is about the only other time you'll interact with the waitstaff. What put my party and me over the edge was at the end when we paid and were about to leave.

We had a larger group so we requested for the bill to be split, but they seemed to pretend to not hear the request and brought the bill combined in one. We decided it we will just figure the bill out and pay separately anyway. After we had all put our money down one of the waitresses rudely stopped us because she had counted the money and we were just shy of making 10% for tips and wouldn't let us leave until we did. At an establishment where there is next to no service and the customers are required to write down their own orders on top of the fact that our one request to split the bill was ignored, I was surprised she had the audacity to count our payment and complain about tips. Even if this wasn't the case and we made a mistake when tipping and taking into account "usual Chinese practices" it was still...