Sunflower Vietnamese Cuisine — Restaurant in Austin

It could have been a lot better.

The vegan pho was pretty good. There were a ton of flies in the restaurant which was really gross.

No banh mi which made it seem more like a general Asian fusion place, instead of a true Vietnamese joint. It was also hella expensive. I didn't even realize they serve Cafe Sua Da until writing this review, because I didn't get a chance to look over the menu like I wanted to.

A friend took me to lunch here. The service was really aggressive and awful. They definitely want you to GTFO ASAP. They were really grabby with the condiments and like asking but taking it away instead of letting me answer. I like to continually tweak my seasoning the whole time I'm eating, it's a weird habit of mine, but it bothered me that they did this. They grabbed a lot of stuff I was still pecking on in that way too. It made me feel pretty uncomfortable and it was awkward AF.

Nobody came by to see how things were, water never refilled, but they made so many trips to our table to get the condiments back. That seemed really important to them.

I think a lot of people in Austin are generally pretty rude. This seemed to be another example of that. I have food allergies and they never asked me about it. The waiter was very unpleasant and clearly didn't want to engage in any conversation with us or be asked about anything on the menu, he high pressured us to decide almost immediately what we wanted. It was a shame because my friend had never eaten Vietnamese food before. I hate that this was her experience with it.

Meh, it wasn't the best. I had fun visiting with my friend, but the rest wasn't that great. I wouldn't recommend this place or come again.

They want you to pay at the front as you leave, they don't offer table payments or even bring a check. They should definitely communicate that to the diners instead of expecting people to figure it out.

As much as they charge, they need to do a way nicer job in the entire checkout process and all around service. It's either casual dining with this abrupt and jarring service and prices to match, or it's a little more upscale like your prices reflect and that means the service has a long way to go from...

It’s been a few years since I last ate here, and unfortunately the quality of Sunflower’s food has dramatically changed for the worst. Prices remain significantly higher than average in comparison to other vietnamese restaurants in the area, but the quality has dropped down immensely. Service, however, was kind, polite, and quick - maybe the only redeeming quality of my visit.

We ordered the muc rang muoi (salt and pepper calamari) and ca chien me (tamarind fried fish), and both were extremely disappointing- enough for me to never return until the quality comes back up to par. The calamari was very small and shriveled with thick (but at least crunchy) batter coating. Flavor was okay, but definitely not worth it for the money. We felt like we were eating mainly fried batter with just a little bit of squid - I would 100% go to another restaurant like Bep Saigon for this instead where price, quantity, and quality are better.

The tamarind fried fish was the most disappointing with, again, a very thick, dry, heavy coating of batter. There was only a few “dabbles” of what could maybe be called tamarind sauce? There were small blobs of gelatinous goops which had a slight taste of tamarind - overall making the dish taste and feel nauseating, unfortunately. There was barely any sauce to give the dish flavor, and what little sauce we had was basically in-palatable. We had to force ourselves to finish the dish because we didn’t want to waste all the money we spent on it. To make it worse, the fish was sitting on a large bed of thinly cut unseasoned raw white onion which added a strong astringent taste to the dish- not mixing well with the overall dish. Perhaps seasoned pickled onions may have been more complimentary.

The plain white rice that was served with these dishes were also somehow unsatisfactory. It had no fragrant aroma and had a mushy quality- likely over cooked and had too much water added.

Overall I strongly implore management to improve the quality of the food at this restaurant. When it first opened, I was a frequent customer because the quality and taste was delicious and matched the prices well. I hope Sunflower will be able to return to the quality...

Sunflower is one of the few Vietnamese restaurants in Austin that carries my favorite dish, Chao Tôm. In fact, I don’t know any other Vietnamese restaurants that have it. If anybody else knows of any, please send me a message! It is ground shrimp wrapped around sugar cane and they bring it to your table on a plate with a lot of vegetables, including lettuce and mint and noodles. They have the wrappers made of rice paper in a container with water, and you dip them into the water for several seconds to get them soft, and then you put the shrimp, the noodles, and a bunch of the vegetables on it, and then roll it up. I’ve taken some videos of this, but they are not very good. Rolling them up is a little tricky because by this point, the wrapper is very sticky and it’ll stick to anything. The plate, your hands, itself, napkins, anything. I’ve gotten better at it over the years, but at this point, I’m still just barely adequate. I get this every single time I come here and a lot of the times I come here, it’s just for this. It’s a little bit hard to find on the menu because it is under the appetizers, but if you scan the appetizers closely, you will see it as a subheading of another appetizer. I had it at other places in San Francisco, which has a much larger Vietnamese population, and it was may be a little bit better, but this one is still excellent. I think I prefer when it’s grilled a little bit more, some of the places in San Francisco grill it until it’s actually Slightly brown on the outside. Everything else here I’ve tried has been really good. I usually get the spring rolls as an appetizer although it seems a little redundant to get spring rolls, which are almost the same thing as the Chao Tôm. But I...