Pho Edinburgh Lothian Road — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

Decided to book Pho as a birthday treat for my husband. We were greeted at the door. And the manager wished him a happy birthday after noticing the note on our booking.

Starters The crispy pork spring rolls, were as described crispy and fresh . The vinaigrette and peanut sauce were lovely accompaniments and didn't over power the starters. The chicken wings were nicely fried with the meat inside juicy cooked just right. The sriracha sauce went a long nicely with the chicken. And seasoned just right. We were still eating our starters and our mains were bought out to us. So we had to rush to eat the remaining 5 wings.

Mains I had the rice bowl with the broken rice, they had ran out of the beef so it was a two meat instead of three, pork and chicken. Found the meat full of flavour but it was dry and it was four small chunks of meat. Meaning you had to bite each piece as they were too big to pull fully into your mouth. The rice was over cooked and wet. It had a nice fragrant taste. It was unpleasant texture to eat, almost to the texture of a pudding rice. After three mouthfuls, I just felt it just hit the bottom of my stomach and couldn't stomach any more. There amount of rice was big compared to ratio of meat.

The pho house , the chicken meat was dry and stringy, the prawns over cooked that they had shrunk in size, the beef was over cooked and dry. The broth was nice but needed abit more flavour, no depth of flavour like traditional pho. The broth wasn't very hot. The pho noodles were clumped together so you had to tease them out carefully. Authentic pho has sliced onions in it, this didn't.The portion size was a bit small for the price of £14.75.

Morning glory couldn't taste any garlic in the greens, it was heavily seasoned. So much so it made it salty. And we both felt the taste of this long after our meal, as it made us v thirsty. The greens were over cooked and limp, they didn't have much crunch to them. We asked for them to be spicy but the chillies seemed to be a garnish. As they was no taste of chillies through the greens. Surprised this is under the menu as a starter instead of as a side with a main. As the seasoning is so overwhelming to be eaten alone .

The Vietnamese ice coffee, it isn't fragrant compared to authentic Vietnamese coffee that I have had. It's missing the rich roast flavour. I was given a hot coffee by mistake and it was changed to cold. Even then I couldn't smell the rich aroma from either, as that's a sign of a good coffee. I was afraid of it being to sweet and requested that the condensed milk be served separately. The staff was happy to do this for me. As it's traditionally served with the condensed milk in the glass.

Our server Mikhail was very pleasant and friendly. He was still under instructions from the manager.

We gave the manager our feed back on the food. She offered to get me another main to replace the rice dish and take off the morning glory off our bill. But we just wanted to give feedback and not after any thing else. She said the kitchen were still finding their feet, and said will feed it back to the kitchen. We had expected some teeth issues as we dined during the soft opening with 50% off.

Found the restaurant where we were sat a bit dark. Some areas are more lite up. The toilets were clean as to be expected to a newly opened establishment. But found it to be unhygienic that the door leading to the toilet was propped open by a small wheelie bin.

There was a 12.5% discretionary service charge added to our bill. Card only business

Having dined at authentic Vietnamese restaurants and Vietnamese homemade cooked meal by Vietnamese ppl. 'Pho' chain just doesn't hit the spot for me unfortunately. Much better places in Edinburgh.

Stars are for the two starters we liked but let down...

Dear Pho Restaurant Manager，

I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to share my experience at your restaurant, Pho, on February 18 at around 2:00 PM. While I had high expectations for my visit, I encountered several issues that I believe should be brought to your attention.

Firstly, despite having made a reservation in advance and noticing that the restaurant was not particularly busy at the time, I was not greeted or attended to upon arrival. There were no staff members in sight, and I had to call out a few times near the “Staff Only” kitchen door (without stepping inside) before someone finally acknowledged me. A staff member then asked me to return to the entrance and wait. Eventually, another server came to seat me, but unfortunately, the chair had food crumbs on it, which was not very pleasant.

Secondly, when placing my order, I requested extra broth for my noodles. The server asked if I wanted an additional bowl for the broth, and I agreed, assuming it was simply a serving convenience. However, at no point was I informed that there would be an extra charge of £2.50 per bowl. I only found out about this additional cost when I received the bill, which I found to be quite misleading. Clear communication about extra charges is essential for customer satisfaction.

Additionally, I found the chili sauce to be overwhelmingly spicy—far beyond what one might expect from a typical hot sauce. For those unfamiliar with it, it could be nearly inedible. While I understand that spice levels vary by cuisine, a small note or verbal warning about its intensity would have been appreciated.

Finally, I noticed that my bill included nearly £6 in service charges. While I understand that tipping is customary, I strongly believe that service charges should reflect the quality of service received rather than being an obligatory fee. Given my experience, I did not feel that this charge was justified.

I hope you take this feedback constructively, as I genuinely enjoy Pho’s food and would love to see improvements in service and transparency. I would appreciate your thoughts on this matter and look forward to...

Was looking forward to this place after seeing the 4.8 star rating, but was unfortunately disappointed. The staff was overall very polite and kind, but our waiter, and young man, in particular was simply incompetent. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt since he was nice, but he continued to make so many errors. He took a long time to write down our orders and had to ask us to repeat it back multiple times, since he couldn’t seem to remember. I’m not even exaggerating when I say he confirmed our orders at least 5 times. Even after the initial order, he came back to check on our orders again. He then still proceeded to get one completely wrong, and then fail to put in another order. One of our party of four had to wait until the rest of us were almost done eating before his order arrived. He also came by with some random drinks and asked if they were ours, which they were not. Maybe he was new, but regardless he was thoroughly confused the entire time.

The saving grace was that another waitress, a lovely blonde woman, was very responsive and kind, and corrected the mistakes quickly. She graciously took the delayed order off our check. She was great and really helped redeem this experience.

The food was fine, but not authentic or anything special. We ordered a Vietnamese crepe as an appetizer for the table, which was very salty. It was also served with dry rice paper for wrapping, with no dish of water to dip the paper in. Obviously the staff has little experience with Asian food, I hope the other customers are not eating dry plain rice paper. The pho was just okay. Seems like there are a decent range of options for vegetarians. Overall, would not...