Nhà Việt Nam Kyoto — Restaurant in Kyoto

2023 update. Improved food taste, service speed, no longer loud background speakers. Additional stars. All else remains. (2020) For a restaurant than seems to be passing itself as fancy or of higher level, it is not. Good location in the middle of Kyoto, two blocks from Kyoto Station, somewhat good street view from the second floor, Vietnamese stylized decoration, etc. Food left much to be desired. Taste, generally high on the spiciness, high on the sauces, food did not taste fresh. Vegan or vegetarian? You are really out of luck. Every dish has meat or animal ingredients. Not even the desserts are free. No exception. You can ask them to prepare mixed cooked vegetables or fried rice with no animal ingredients… but two strikes out of two --some sort of fish sauce on the vegetables, very small cut egg pieces on the rice. The service left much to be desired. The servers put the orders on one side of the table. Guests had to pass the food and drinks to the correct person, instead of serving their orders on the right of each person. Servers did not know the names of some of the drinks, also had to take back incorrect orders and drinks. To be fair to them, there were mainly two people working the floor, taking orders, serving, cleaning the tables. Another person walked the entrance and around. Servers were not involved with the clients, you had to get their attention or call them to get service. Very slow service. Part of our group ordered the course meal. The second course did not arrive until one and a half hours after we ordered, and after we had all finished eating and were thinking of dessert. Dessert served about twenty minutes after ordering it. Restaurant was only half full, one third full when we left. Sitting time 6:20 to 8:40 Heavy decoration. Music somewhat loud, Japanese and...

This place is very discriminating against foreigners and their food tastes like water with some leaves (aside from being spicy)

We came one night as a group and they told us it was 無理 (impossible) for us to stay. My friend went in and talked to them for a while and they let us in with "it will take some time for you to get your food". In the end it wasn't even that long, but the food wasn't really that good. Tasted like water... a spicy one. They didn't even let us choose from the whole menu (although that may be some kind of rule for everyone). They seated us near the door (even though there was plenty of space for everyone at normal tables) and since it was winter, it got quite cold with everyone opening the door all the time.

Overall I really would recommend thinking twice about coming here, as you may get treated badly, even though the price of their food would...

Ordered the pho ga (chicken) and also beef. Sizes were decent and pricing was pretty much on par to what I’m used to. The pho here came pre-garnished except for some lemon grass and chili peppers which you add to your own liking. I’m used to having add in mint leaves, sprouts and my own amount of hoisin sauce and sriracha sauce so this was a different experience. The chicken was broiled so it was nice and tender and super tasty. The beef was nicely sliced quite thin and was also very delicious. The noodles were done just right, soft but not over cooked. The service was very good as the waitress was very attentive to making sure our glasses of water were always full. The entrance to the restaurant gets confused for the hotel entrance, just take the escalator up and you’re at the restaurant, it’s quite spacious and above...