Little Saigon Noord — Restaurant in Amsterdam

I was disappointed, the food here is not authentic and very tasteless. I am viet from Boston and grew up in viet neighborhood, my family also owns restaurants. I got the pho chay which understandably is hard to make, however very confused by the use of bokchoy and bamboo which are typically chinese. It was okay but bland. The banh mi was nothing close to authentic: french baguette is supposed to be used and it wasn’t nor was it toasted; the pickling of carrots was watery/tasteless; there was no cilantro/koriander/pickled white radish/vietnamese Mayo/pate/green onion/pepper. There were only 4 ingredients in my sandwich, quite expensive for 5 euros. My family sells all of the above for 3 dollars in US. and the che ba mau was better but very watered down and the beans were undercooked and hard. It’s supposed to be “three colored” dessert which is stated by the name but there were only 2 layers haha. There were no jellies or mung beans which are normal. Besides the pandan jelly, there were some other things in there that I did not recognize in typical che. I hate to say this but this cannot be passed off as viet food…the fact that banh mi is very easy to improve or make more authentic by adding the right ingredients shows that there is little effort in the food. Very misleading...

Tried their bun bo hue and banh mi dac biet and I can say as a Vietnamese person myself that this is not authentic at all unfortunately. It came close, they tried but wasn’t it. It was still edible but I expected more so I was quite disappointed.

I don’t know if this restaurant is affiliated with Saigon Caphe since their menu is identical, even using the same menucard on their site but the food at Saigon Caphe CS tastes 100x better.

The service and presentation of the food was good though and food was ready pretty fast.

⭐️Bun Bo Hue: rating 1/5 stars. It was so bland and I don’t know what I ate but that definitely was NOT bun bo hue lol. It didn’t even had a red colour. Where was the lemongrass flavour? Where was the shrimp paste flavour? Why were the noodles cut in small pieces? I had to add a crazy amount of fish sauce to make it edible.

⭐️⭐️Banh mi Dac Biet: rating 2/5 stars. The pork wasn’t even char siu like shown on the menu pictures. It was just normal bland pork sliced in thick pieces and you could really smell the pork which I didn’t like at all. So that ruined the whole banh mi. I believe they put the same pieces of pork they put in the noodlesoups in the banh mi...?

Please do something about this. It’s such a shame for...

Delicious food. We ordered several plates but the beef with lemon grass in specific was my favourite. The people are very friendly there and food was made relatively quickly. The food is truly magnificent and flavorful. We had a shrimp salad and some grilled beef as well. Everything was superb. The only small take I have is the location. It is amongst companies, not the best view, but I guess that's a business model that can serve/deliver food to company staffs during their break. Still, sitting and eating inside on the benches is pretty cozy and wholesome despite having only 3 to 4 tables. The price ranges are fair. Some dishes are more expensive than others. You get two grilled beef skewers for around 6.50. And the beef with lemon grass and rice is around 15 euros. A little cheaper would have been perfect for sure. Overall, will definitely visit this restaurant again and would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to try some...