Pho Lotus Restaurant — Restaurant in Alaska

I rarely review on Google... I was very hesitant going here as this location has had many restaurants fail, prior becoming Pho Lotus. Over the past five years I have seen at least 6 different restaurants. But I noticed the past couple of weeks they have had more than 3 cars in the parking lot anytime I drove by in evenings. So I decided to order takeout. Walking into the restaurant for pickup, it felt warm and inviting. The lady at the register acknowledged me right away and she was very pleasant and kind!! I was pleasantly surprised with the overall experience! I got the cashew nuts chicken and I practically ate it all in one sitting! The veggies had a nice sear to them and they were not mushy, still crisp in the bite! I cannot stand mushy veggies. Lots of cashew flavor and overall flavor. The chicken is thinly sliced and so it was very tender and sopped up the juices well. Looks like they use jasmine rice too (my personal fav!) My hubby got the brocolli beef. His plate was also really good. Some of the beef had grissle bits in it so it wasn't pleasant for some of the pieces, hence the 4 stars. Otherwise would have gotten 5 stars from me! We will order from here again; I can't wait to try one of their curry dishes next! To the person who left a 1 star review due to packaging issues- who in their right mind orders super hot soup as takeout? That is a dish meant to be eaten right away in-restaurant. Duh! Eat here, people of Alaska, you won't be disappointed! I hope Pho Lotus succeeds, currently my fav Thai in Alaska now :)

Update on March 16 2022: about a week ago I placed another takeout order. This time we tried the red thai chicken curry dish. Upon walking in I was greeted immediately by both people at the the counter. The nice gentleman called me by name and wished me to enjoy. We certainly did! Soooooo good, no complaints!! Good amount of curry sauce to veggies to chicken to rice, excellent! It is enough for two people! Kudos, keep up the really yummy food!! I wanted to order today and discovered they are closed on Wednesdays, LOL! Oh well, I will order another day soon....

Me and my wife got sat immediately but by the time our server came over, it was already 30, 35-ish minutes past. Every attempt to make eye contacts and wave of hand failed gracefully. Every servers that we saw disappears into the kitchen and we don’t see them for like 5 minutes at a time, whenever they are out in the dining hall, they are “laser focused” and give their absolute best to don’t look our way.

We thought about leaving and go some place else, but not many places were open at around 8 pm on Sunday. When our server had to bring something over to the table next to us, she couldn’t ignore us no more and finally came over and asked “do you want hot water or cold water?”

Umm no hello? No apology? No excuses?

After placing our orders and was waiting for another 20+ mins for pho (which by the way takes less than 5, 10 mins normally) I got to overheard our server talking to two dudes about how they didn’t have their usual third server working that night and suddenly getting bombarded by amount of guests and pick up orders coming in.

Hmm perhaps they tip her up front? Maybe they are regulars? No idea but she had 5 mins to chitchat with them while she didn’t have 10 seconds to properly greet us.

The food here was pretty good despite the starvation we had after waiting almost an hour for this noodle dish. This is the only reason for 2 stars. We did not feel welcomed and they need to better train their staffs. We also noticed many phone calls were left to ring out.

If you come here while they are not so busy or you are a regular who can butter up these servers, I do not recommend this place for dining in. Either go to some place else or do a take out...

• edit 10/11/22 regrettably, I have had to downgrade my rating significantly from 5 star to 1 star. I know this can happen with new establishments, but their quality has gone down significantly since the timing of my first review and pricing has increased. And I have tried to purchase again and again thinking it was a one off situation. However, the new normal is just ….bad. Papaya salad too fishy (no longer well blended), Pad Thai greasy and bland, added vegetables to dishes both over cooked and minimal, both Red curry and Penang curry extremely oily, off tasting, with very few vegetables. This is an about face from where it was at the beginning. Unfortunately, I can no longer recommend and this makes me sad because it had a lot of promise. There are too many other yummy and better priced Vietnamese/pho & Thai establishments . Hopefully Pho Lotus will take heed and make some changes.

Original: June 2022. So excited to find Pho Lotus!! Stumbled upon it when our usual Pho/Thai place in the neighborhood was closed and SO glad that we did. Food is fresh; great crunchy (ie not over cooked) veggies, phenomenal flavor and generous portion sizes. Highly recommend their papaya salad, Pad Krapoa, chicken Larb and pad Thai! And the staff is so friendly and helpful. We will be coming back here...