Phobidden Fruit Vietnamese Kitchen — Restaurant in Bengaluru

In my quest for finding that perfect Pho in Bangalore, I have been raiding speciality restaurants famous for South East Asian cuisine, especially Vietnamese. Visited Phobidden Fruit, last week to try out their famous and highly recommended Vietnamese fare.

Was pleasantly surprised at the decor, very tropical and rainforesty, heavily planted, minimal but elegant interiors.

Service was quick and we were seated in a preferred corner as and when it became available, orders taken swiftly.

We went with a Crunchy Green Papaya salad, to start with, alongside Bahn Cuon, a Vietnamese rice paper roll / wrap with minced chicken & prawns, both served with a tangy dressing.

Both the dishes were appetising to the eye as well as on the palate, a refreshing taste, very tangy (maybe cause of the tamarind) and kept us wanting more.

The green papaya salad was sour, spicy & tangy, at the same time crunchy, thanks to the bean sprouts and the peanuts. For my amateur palate, I couldn't feel the difference between the Thai version of this salad (I have had before, elsewhere) and this Vietnamese variant, nevertheless equally delicious.

The Bahn Cuon was a great variant of the poh piah rice paper rolls, flavourful, tasty and vanished in seconds.

Obviously we ordered the Pho for main course, I went with a chicken Pho. The portion was huge and heavy. But, the broth was light, aromatic, flavoursome, was a delight to have. The accompaniments were plentiful, and I personally loved the sriracha sauce and the hoisin chutney, not that the Pho needed any. The slow cooked, long brewed broth was definitely one of the best I have had, but (as always) I have had better Pho (outside India), so my quest continues in Bangalore, though the Pho from Phobidden Fruit comes highly recommended.

It was a challenge to finish this large flavour broth in one sitting, still we did good justice. We did decide to try out their desserts, but ordered 1 to share.

We choose Lemongrass pudding, which was decent, with strong flavours in a cold pudding. What we loved most was the aftertaste of this dessert, it was a refreshing mouthfeel that lingered longer than it should.

Overall a great place to try Vietnamese cuisine, a must visit if you are in or around Indra Nagar. Good job Phobidden Fruit, would love coming back to try the wide Vietnamese fare...

This was my first visit to a restaurant that specialises in Vietnamese cuisine. The restaurant is located on 12th Main Road in Indiranagar. Parking for four-wheelers is virtually impossible. The road isn't wide enough and there are no dedicated parking spaces even on the road, let alone for the individual businesses. I suppose anyone visiting Indiranagar for food and drinks is only too aware of parking nightmares. You'll have to park on one of the side roads.

The restaurant ambience is very good: loss of greenery. They've seating capacity for probably 75 people (rough guess). Weekends can get extremely busy and you might struggle to find a vacant table. It's all day dining (12pm to 11:30pm) every weekend.

They have some really interesting and tasty items and I was impressed with everything we tried. For starters we had curry chicken (smokey type). It was very tasty BUT we saw a DEAD COCKROACH in one of the servings. We were shocked to say the least. We informed them and they just took the plate away without even a proper apology. We told them to clear all the plates that contained that item. We also spoke with the Manager who assured us that the rest of the orders would be personally supervised by him prior to being brought to the table.

We also ordered chicken with satay sauce, Saigon noodles, smokey noodles, prawn fried rice, potato fritters, pork curry and beef curry [both with steamed plain rice]: (I didn't try the last 2 items).

All items were very good and we thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the dining process although it started off on a bad note. 2 portions of coconut pudding were served on a complimentary basis.

All items are reasonably priced considering it's based in Indiranagar and dining here won't burn a hole in your pocket. Although we encountered a pest problem, I wouldn't mind going back for another meal and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to people who've never tried Vietnamese cuisine in Bengaluru or those who're looking for...

The location of the restaurant is good and the overall ambience is fine. Considering the pricing, the ambience can be improved. It does feel a little old and poorly maintained at certain areas.

Moving to the food, the summer roll was decent, the iceberg lettuce wrap was the best. Will definitely recommend everyone going there to have this dish. The other two dishes were chicken pho which was barely passable, no flavours and the noodles were overcooked and pork ban Bo hue, this was the worst. Honestly taststed like feet. I've been to Vietnam numerous times and have never had anything that tastes anything like this dish.

Service - this honestly was the worst part of our experience. It's saying a lot considering the food wasn't anything great. The server was quick to give us what we asked but there was no proactiveness or suggestions, there was no smile or warm greetings. Just very matter of fact. Also, instead of getting one portion of the chicken pho he got two, I calmly told him that this was a mistake and to take it back and honestly to this his response was to bark back saying you had only said 2 portions and that I confirmed with you twice. It felt like he had rehearsed the entire thing knowing that we would tell him to return the dish. Because of his tone we honestly just didn't fight back much cos we did not want to ruin our evening but all three of us cohesively decided to just let everyone else know the experience we had there. This was such an easily avoidable situation to provide a good customer experience that this representative completely missed.

Overall the place is over hyped and expensive for what it is. I rather go to Hae kum gang or Suki or nasii and mee for an asian experience. Will not be coming back for sure after the extremely shoddy...