Linh Café — Restaurant in Vancouver

My friend and I decided to visit this location at the last minute due to other options was closed. I’m truly disappointed at the food and the service today.

About the service: we only waited around 15 minutes, which is fantastic considering how busy the restaurant was. However, I felt unsafe as there’s no measure of social distancing between tables. The server knew about it and tried to tell the patrols next to us to try and not sit too close to us, but he left and let the customer next to us sat right next me. If that wasn’t uncomfortable enough, those patrons kept pointing and judging out table, we both felt extremely uncomfortable. FOHs were not attentive at all, we got asked if we were ready to order for 3 times after we put our orders in. We didn’t even get out water refilled at all, but we were the only table that didn’t receive a water bottle to refill ourself. I hope that wasn’t because we were Vietnamese or we didn’t wear suit and tie. This type of service we received didn’t justify the price we had to pay.

In terms of the food, it was mediocre at best -Spicy bread stick tasted like microwaved bread stuffed with can pate. The audacity to call it banh mi cay Hai Phong was a joke, since the ingredients was not even similar nor the flavour. Our dish was even lacked fried shallot( the original didn’t have it). We have to order a least three, which was 5 dollars each. With that price, I could have bought 2 banh mi and still have change to tip 15%.

-Burger and fries was mediocre as you can get them everywhere, and A&W is the best alternative if you ask me.

-Beef tartare tasted straight up like beef with pickle juice with some random green salad on top.

-Escargot was a huge disappointment. Frozen snail in supermarket have more flavour than this dish. Snail was not fresh, probably stir fried in the pan before mixed with tomato juice. After we finished half of it, they offered us some stale bread to have it with. The bread was hard and we literally had to saw it with the knife.

-Pho, the most popular and scrumptious dish to Vietnamese community from Linh restaurants, was smaller and more expensive than ever. 3 slices of braised beef and some herb for 16 dollars? I was so surprised because that was all I had along with and 3 dollars poached egg that I ordered. If you think that is reasonable, I sadly have to say for the same price, you could have full toppings option in most Vietnamese restaurants in DOWNTOWN Vancouver. The soup was dark and bland, really similar to watery box beef stock, darken by using braised liquid from the beef. Ridiculously, our noodle was over cooked, and it look like how my aunt cut up the noodle to feed her 1 year old son. We ate only 2-3 bites and we told a lady who I believe was the owner. She said sorry and she’ll let the cook know then left. There was no solution for the problem. We waited for 20 minutes with no water, hoped to get a solution. After wasted too much time, we got our bill and the server informed us that her owner gave us 20% off on the pho. Sorry but I didn’t spend that much time and money for the food that I couldn’t eat just to get 3 dollar of for 20 dollar bowl of food.

The restaurant locates under the bridge, the atmosphere was chaos. Server assistances walked back and forth with and empty tray while servers ran everywhere doing everything. One server only checked on the two table beside us, I don’t know if that our server, or the whole restaurant just ignored my table. Dirty dishes stacked outside the kitchen next to freshly made drinks in the bar. That’s just some opinion from someone worked in hospitality.

Overall, I hope that this was due to lack of training and the restaurant will improve their service and food quality control. However, I would not recommend anyone to come here nor ever returned in the...

OVERALL: Recommendation of a friend and this did not disappoint!

FAMILY FRIENDLY: Yes PET FRIENDLY: No PARKING: Street parking. There is limited parking right next door, under the bridge.

FOOD: Warm bread rolls, complimentary: 5 Stars - Okay, the 5 stars is not because they were free but because they were so warm, crusty on the outside, and so soft on the inside. I will say once they get cold, they're like meh.

Banh Mi Cay Hai Phong - Spicy Baguette Sticks (pork lever pate, hote sauce, shallot oil. minimum order 3 sticks) $5CAD each: 5 Stars - I always love pate and pate on banh mi is a must. This just shows you really can eat a banh mi with nothing else but pate LOL These little sticks look so unassuming but wholely hell, there was a moment when we all were eyeing the last piece.

Lamb Chops (NZ lamb chops with pepper sauce. minimum order 3 chops) $13.99CAD each: 5 Stars - One of the best lamb chops I've ever had and the sauce is amazing... i literally had them bring me more bread just so i could eat ALL the sauce on the plate. No regrets on whatever folks thought of me. The only thing that beats this is the one from Rare Society (Mill Creek, WA) ;)

Pho Bo (beef noodle soup with braised AAA Alberta beef brisket and rice noodles), Mini size $11CAD + add on bone marrow for $2.50CAD: 5 Stars - The broth was so light yet so flavorful. The beef was tender but i couldnt taste the difference between this vs other ones i've had. I added the bone marrow to give it another level of flavor and lets face it, beef fat makes everything better.

Homemade Pickle Garlic Chili - This is the condiment they provide for the pho bo. This is the best vietnamese sauce/pickling thing i've ever had. I dropped 4 giant spoonful into my pho and no regrets

DRINK: Domaine Houchart - Rose 2020 (Provence, France) $65CAD 750ml bottle: 3 Star - blah, i've had way better but i've also gotten way worse. I drank it because i'm not one to waste alcohol. Probably should have ordered a sangria lol

RESTAURANT/SERVICE: Google map needs to update their location for this place! If you map to Linh Cafe, it will literally try to tell you to stop on the bridge right above it. You need to map to literally any other shop/restaurant by them and it will give the actual direction.

This place was a lot bigger than i thought it would be and much fancier. Not fancier like you have to wear your church best but makes you feel out of place when you come in shorts, t-shirt, and flip flops :)

Our waitress was extremely friendly and consistently checked on us. Makes me wonder if this is her first job in hospitality. I hope she never...

Oh dearies... not the best dining experience I've had for sure. I had such high hopes and expectations as I've heard nothing but rave reviews about this place. Granted that was before they opened this location in yaletown so perhaps the reviews stand true for the west 4th location before they closed it. The atmosphere and menu is expensive and considering a bowl of pho is $20-$30, I do expect this place to be fine dining but there is much to be improved before they could get to that point. We had multiple different servers and there was no communication between them when it came to the timing of our food coming out. We ordered two appetizers and 2 entrees. We received one appie, one entree, one appie, one entree - in that order - literally minutes from each other. My boyfriend got pretty upset by the 3rd dish and complained that our food was going to get cold at this rate. Honestly this is the first time I've ever complained about service being TOO efficient. I can understand where he's coming from. Our meal wasn't cheap, it was $140, but we felt like we were being rushed out of the restaurant. Don't get me wrong, the servers were attentive for the most part, but it would have been nice to receive our entrees after our appetizers were done. They did graciously accept our feedback and hopefully it gets back to management. Unfortunately this did put a black cloud over our 6 month anniversary dinner and I did not get to enjoy it as much as I would have liked. Moving on to taste, we ordered the beef tar tar, deep fried frog legs, beef short rib, and duck confit. I'll be completely honest, I was quite disappointed about the taste more than the food coming out too quickly. The beef tar tar tastes like a raw big Mac, the frog legs taste like the famous Phnom Penh chicken wings, the beef short rib was kind of dry despite being drenched in sauce (not to mention the portion ridiculously small) and the duck confit was good, but not spectacular. In conclusion, their reputation exceeds them and I hope they can redeem themselves in my book(or in this case, reviews) in the future. I would also like to apologize to the one waiter my boyfriend gave attitude to. He reacted on his emotions and I assure you I have told him off for making people who have no control over the situation feel bad and he has agreed he could have handled the situation better. He's just really passionate about his food and that's why he was so upset about what...