CYCLO — Restaurant in Da'an District

If you get fairly easily triggered by bad service, don’t come here. I have a very high bar of tolerance for bad service and even I got upset. Normally I’m pretty used to little to non-existent service in small joints like this in Taipei, but when a place automatically charges you 10% on an already overpriced pho (almost $10 per bowl), I expect to be treated with at least a smile and some bare level of enthusiasm. We went during lunchtime to a close-to-empty shop, but servers eyes were all glued to the floor or chatting with each other- completely ignored us when we were ready for our order. One guy literally walked passed my table avoided eye contact and ignored my excuse-me’s. When we finally managed to get one of the servers attention and gestured that we were ready for our order, he gave me a condescending attitude and said in Chinese, “I know, I was about to come over” as if I was rushing him. Needless to say it wasn’t pleasant either when we had questions about the menu. I am not interested in being patronized just for a bowl of pho. At a price of NT159, their spring rolls were subpar to say the very least. I’d give them lower than a two star but despite the bad experience they do serve a really tasty broth. However I will not come back here again. Also, they don’t have...

The wait staff was friendly, but several problems with this place:

No bathroom, no place to wash your hands. They will direct you to a nearby McDonald's, pretty inconvenient, and honestly, not having a place to even wash your hands is bad.

Very expensive. 360NTD for a bowl of Pho is way overpriced for what you get.

Hair in soup. Ya, was hard to get over this one. They had this all English "Health & Safety Grade A" messaging on the wall, but none of that matters when you have a bit of unwanted protein. What the Pho?

Nothing available on the menu. About 2/3 of the menu items were gone or unavailable. The menu itself was also just confusing.

Drinks came in single-use plastic cups with plastic straws. Thought Taipei was outlawing this stuff? Common, change already. To clarify, water had reusable cups.

I will never go back. I suggest looking for other options, this place is not worth the...

Seven years later, I still consider this the best "American style" pho in Taipei. I've tried almost all of the notable pho places in this city and this is the closest to the pho I had in Little Saigon, Houston.

The broth is right, and the noodles are the thin rice noodles that are the norm in the states but that other pho places in Taiwan rarely use.

Like everywhere else, inflation has affected the prices and the portions, but I still think this place is worth it.

Of special note is there is their sweetened condensed milk ice cubes (煉乳冰塊) + ice drip coffee. I like it better than the usual french press iced coffee that they also offer, and I would say it's more delicious than most of the coffee I get in coffee shops.

They also have a full menu of other dishes if your friends don't want pho. They look nice, but of course I've never tried them. I'm here...