Saigon Noodles & Grill Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Arlington

Unfortunately I HAVE to give a star but in all honestly this restaurant deserve not a single praise. I would advise against wasting your money at Saigon Noodles & Grill. You can put your money to better use at another restaurant where 1) the pho will taste better 2) the staff will actually provide you with what you requested. I tried ordering a bubble tea and while I was telling the manager Gam H what I wanted she kept cutting me off and said she understood what I was requested which cannot be true being that she came with a totally different bubble tea that I didn’t request. When she delivered the drink in which I did not order to be, I told her it doesn’t look like what I requested. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and tried the drink since she didn’t seem to understand a single thing I was saying to her. I did not like the drink so I asked her for a different drink as a substitute— didn’t mind paying for a different drink. When I asked her if I could remove this bubble tea from my bill (since I didn’t drink it) she said “we cannot reuse the drink. And the restaurant already wasted the ingredients on this drink.” She went back and forth with me on a simple request. Proceeded to about us right in front of us. When I asked to speak to the manager she said she told the cashier to tell us that she was the manager as if she wasn’t just speaking to us directly before. Then she said she would have to call the other manager to get permission to remove the nasty drink from our bill. At this point we didn’t want to continue going back and forth so we just paid our bill. As we were walking out they were still talking about us. Once again I advise you to think twice before wasting your money here. You can get better customer service and professionalism by...

Honestly, I have pretty mixed feelings about Saigon. I still appreciate that they have a vegetarian pho option, which Saigon's highly popular counterpart across the street lacks, but their vegetable and tofu pho is honestly one of the only advantages that Saigon has over the other Vietnamese restaurants in the area. The vegetarian pho broth is pretty lacking in flavor, but thankfully everything can be fixed with a bottle of sriracha and hoisin sauce. They provided an average serving of fried tofu, but the tofu was a bit dry despite being submerged in the broth, but I couldn't tell if it was because the tofu was overcooked or had been left to sit out for too long. The veggies were a bit overcooked, but I appreciated that they were quite plentiful. One thing that Saigon does have that other nearby Vietnamese restaurants lack, though, is traditional Vietnamese fare aside from banh mi and pho. One of the friends that I came here with ordered their fried tilapia platter, and he was pleasantly surprised by how authentic and delicious their take on this traditional dish was! I certainly appreciate Saigon, and it makes me sad to see how empty the restaurant is every time I visit, but the quality of their pho really can't compare to the many other Vietnamese spots in the D.C. / NoVA area. I'll still come here out of convenience (and because Pho 75 still can't accommodate my dietary restrictions), but if I have access to a car or am truly craving great pho, I'll probably opt for...

We should have sensed trouble when we first walked in. There was a couple ahead of us, waiting to be seating. We all stood around the front of the restaurant for at least 5 minutes and were never approached by any restaurant staff to be seated. The couple in front of us finally asked someone about being seated. Once my husband and I were seated, it took a while for a wait person to actually come to our table. We had plenty of time to look over the menu (we were never offered an actual restaurant menu, just the take-out version) so we ordered right away. After that, we waited for at least 15 minutes. One of the restaurant staff members approached our table, while eating, and asked us (with food in his mouth) if we had ordered, then wiped his mouth with his hand as crumbs were falling out. We were pretty disgusted and contemplated leaving. However, we continued to wait but no one returned to our table. After some time, I asked one of the staff members what the status of the order was. He said "I will check." He never checked. He stood at the register for at least 5 minutes while we waited. At that point my husband and I got up and left. It was only at that moment that he said "oh, I will check now!" but it was far too little, far too late. Not to mention that we had a feeling the establishment was not the most sanitary as we observed several staff members eating behind the counter and handling food with their bare hands. Will definitely...