Ban Mee Restaurante Vietnamita — Restaurant in Hospital

Authentic Vietnamese Restaurant tucked on a small side street close to the heart of downtown San Jose; great value @ amazingly authentic taste as close as you can find at least in Costa Rica!

PHO All 3 times I've ordered Pho. The rice noodles are the thin rice noodles, just the way I've always had it. Second, the broth .... is amazing!! It definitely has the authentic flavors that a pho broth should have and what I love most about it is that it is very light, and not covered with oil on the surface. Do slurp up the broth at the end of the meal - it is the best part of this dish! Though it might look like a simple recipe of bone broth and rice noodles with thinly sliced beef, a lot of TLC goes behind the broth, cooking it for hours on end simmering all the herbs and ingredients, the broth of this dish is what MAKES the pho!

SPRING ROLLS (BBQ PORK) The rice paper was done just perfectly to hold the ingredients in place and the flavors of the pork is just the way I've always remembered it growing up eating this in different Viet restaurants all over Toronto.

BANH MI (BEEF & VEGETABLES) Although I recall traditionally this is made with pork, we ordered the beef and vegetables version of the Banh mi sandwich and it did not disappoint. The quantity of the ingredients within the bun were just enough to fit the bun, and the bun alone would comfortably satisfy one person if eaten alone with one appetizer. It's not too big and it's not too small, its kind of an in-between size. The bun itself was also perfectly toasted and soft on the inside. It would definitely be a re-order kind of dish.

BANH XEO (EGG CREPE WITH SHRIMP AND VEGGIES) This has to be my second favorite dish after the pho. A common street food in Vietnam, it is basically an egg crepe with shrimps, bean sprouts, mushrooms inside. It was one of the most savory dishes I've ordered here at this restaurant and definitely recommend this one!

VIETNAMESE COFFEE Served iced cold - the flavor is on point. Viet coffee is known to slow dripped and mixed with condensed milk. Sounds weird right? Don't knock it till you try it! It's absolutely delicious and the condensed milk gives the rich coffee a thicker texture and sweet.

FRIED ICE CREAM Don't leave this restaurant without adding this to your bill! I have tried a various couple of restaurants that had fried ice cream but so far, I give the award to Ban Mee. The batter is not thick, its just the right amount and perfect wrapped around the vanilla ice cream before it melts. Although not compared to anything in Japan, I definitely would order this again and again!!

THE SERVICE If just based on the flavors, quality and authenticity of this restaurant, I would rate it a 5-star here on Google Guides. The value is definitely amazing and not over-priced for the quality and authenticity here.

The reason i dropped the star rating to a 4 and almost a 3 was solely due to the service the day I came in to try the food. The waitress must have been new, she was very clueless and seemed to be off in a different world. The guy behind the cashier had to come assist her it was not because it was a language barrier since we had both English/Spanish speaking at the table. She had also double ordered our BBQ pork rolls but that's fine because we never say no to extra food anyways but still, this may not be acceptable for some others who want specifically what they ordered.

The times I went for take-out orders, there was a very knowledgeable Tica waitress that knew the menu like the back of her hand, gave legit recommendations, friendly and welcoming.

Having said that, I wouldn't knock the restaurant as it does have AMAZING food, QUALITY and VALUE. I recommend coming here still and that one-sit down experience I had will not stop me from giving them other chances for better service as that could have been the girl's first day at...

I went to the restaurant with my mom two days ago. At first, the food seemed good. We ordered a large seafood soup and a Pho Volcan. However, my mom found a fly in her soup, so we asked the waitress if she could help us. She took the soup away, and after quite a long wait, the manager and the chef came over. They insisted that the fly had fallen into the soup while it was on our table, even though there were no flies around. It's important to mention that my mom found the fly at the bottom of the soup, clearly dead, so it must have already been in the soup when it was served.

We told them this, but they repeatedly claimed that the fly had just fallen in. They offered to replace the soup, but we requested something other than seafood soup, as we were concerned about contamination. They initially refused, saying that replacing it with something else wasn’t possible. I pointed out that this didn’t make sense, especially since we didn’t know when the fly got there.

I asked for a Pho Volcan for my mom instead, and at first, they refused, until I mentioned that the Pho Volcan is actually cheaper than the large seafood soup. Only then did they agree.

We ended up spending a long time there, and the whole experience left us without much appetite. On the way to pay, the cashier was charging us for the seafood soup that my mom didn’t eat due to the fly incident, and for the Pho. I asked them to only charge us for the two Pho dishes and not for the seafood soup, as she couldn’t eat it. They made a big fuss, and when we asked for the manager, they refused to bring her. At some point, they made us feel like thieves or as if we had brought the fly ourselves.

In general, it was a very unpleasant experience. I’ve visited this restaurant many times before and never had an issue, but I hope no one else has to go through this. The way they handled the situation completely ruined the experience.

The staff clearly didn’t know how to handle this kind of issue. Instead of helping us, they made us feel humiliated and mistreated. As a customer, I understand these things can happen, but how they handled the problem was what made...

Ordered Pho noodle soup with beef, vermicelli, and cold Vietnamese coffee. I would say I am a huge pho connoisseur and my partner is of Vietnamese ancestry and lived in Vietnam for a while. We enjoy a lot of pho in Vancouver and Calgary. This place is quite good with a bit of Costan Rican flavor. The minute we walked towards this place we can smell the wonderful aroma of the soup. Usually a good sign. The soup was delicious, slightly different aroma to what I’m used to back home. There weren’t any basil, or maybe I did have some but it taste different in Costa Rica? But it did have other veggies you get traditionally in Vietnam. Overall, I really enjoyed the dish, my partner said it’s not completely authentic to Vietnam but it was flavourful. The vermicelli was delicious as well, the fish sauce was really good, but the spring rolls lacked the crunchy texture. Ice coffee was a bit too sweet and had too much ice in it which left only a few sips of the actually coffee. It was nice to be able to enjoy this comfort food during our long stay...