Soy House — Restaurant in Bellingham

Me and my partner are an interracial couple, we came to Soy House to eat dinner and all I can talk about is how awful the service was — the food was mediocre at best. We came in before it got busy and got seated in the back corner of the restaurant (with multiple other tables open, interesting..?) but we were hungry and just wanted to sit down and get food going. We were brought waters, and then got zero service for over 20 minutes. My boyfriend tried waving a server down and he literally ignored him. The first server that came over to us never introduced herself, no “hi how are you?”, Just a simple “what do you want to order?” — diabolical. Her name was Hope, we overheard her introduce herself to the table next to us that got sat way after we did. She even gave them a “How’s your day going? What can I get started for you guys?”! We actually never had a server the entire hour and a half we were there which was funny, it was a different person anytime an interaction was had with our table. It took us 35 minutes to just get the 2 spring roll appetizers we ordered, and even better — the guy who brought them over to us basically tossed the plates on our table. We didn’t get our entrees until about an hour of us being there, I understand it gets busy because I work in food myself, but this was just absurd. We watched tables around and next us get sat after us and got their food quickly, and were provided decent, kind, and friendly service — with one consistent server. We almost left (really wish we did after no service for 20 mins), and then were brought our entrees with zero check ins from anyone the whole time we were eating. We had to flag someone down to give us our check, nobody ever came to get the check, so we went to the front to pay and I asked to talk to their manager. She came over seemingly unconcerned about the problem, asked what was wrong, we explained the experience to her and all we got was an “I’m sorry” multiple times. Nothing to actually correct the situation. Seems like this type of discriminatory racist behavior happens a lot based off the way she reacted, and I will proudly never be spending a dime here ever again — Pho 99 is way better anyway and their peanut sauce is actually good. Plus, they’re not a discriminatory...

Soy House serves the best Vietnamese food in Bellingham and excellent phô. They have expanded to include a stellar array of hot pot opttions. Their extensive menu has items to please every palate and accommodate every dietary guideline. Absolutely stellar variety of vegan options including main dishes such as curries, savory and sweet steamed buns, pot stickers, and desserts. Many choices are available without gluten.

Update: Soy House now serves hot pot. They have a separate-but-connected restaurant for it, but you can also order it from the main side. The broth choices (in order of increasing heat) pineapple, tom yum, red curry and Szechuan, are all vegan. Hot pot is served in a large tureen over a flame and is really large enough to feed at least two people. The tom yum hot pot is delicious, the pineapple curry flavoring and a bit sweet, and the spicy Szechuan is fantastic and can cure a cold or flu (or at least make them much more tolerable).

Soy House phô is arguably the best in town and can be ordered with vegan broth as well as customized with all sorts of add-ins and options ("half-noodle" is a great choice when wanting extra brothy goodness). Their vegan side menu (maybe the only one in town) had delicious entrees like seaweed-wrapped tofu as well as strew and other specialties.

The restaurant itself has a nice atmosphere and is large, airy and well-ventilated. It can get a little noisy and crowded at popular times. There are also outdoor tables and benches, most under cover.

The owners are a long-time Bellingham restaurant family who have provided excellent customer service since the original Soy House on Bakerview (now closed). They are always friendly and go the extra mile to take care of their customers.

We love Soy House and will continue to choose them wherever we want a great...

Despite the regular good reviews of this restaurant, our party of 4 was greatly underwhelmed on what was our first visit. The restaurant wasn't busy when we arrived, but it took quite a while to get our drink order. We ordered food, including an appetizer of egg rolls. The entree portion of our order arrived, but the egg rolls didn't. It was clear the server hadn't ordered them. She made a vague excuse and said the kitchen was working on them. We waited longer and, at one point, asked her to cancel the order. She said it couldn't be canceled because there wasn't a manager on shift to cancel the order. Eventually, the egg rolls were delivered to our table...when we were almost done with our entrees. When we were given our checks to pay, we had issues with what we were charged. One entree, which included meat, was ordered to be vegetarian, yet we were charged for a side of vegetables. The dish already included veggies, so we shouldn't have been charged extra for them. We were also charged extra for sauces. This also didn't make sense as the entree said it included a sauce. We had to explain this to the server, who we had a hard time tracking down. What was interesting was that she told us she would get the checks corrected, she just had to wait until the manager wasn't busy so they could do it. Hmmm...we were told there wasn't a manager on shift when we wanted to cancel our egg roll order. We either had a very inexperienced server, or she just didn't care/wasn't very good at her job. Our whole dinner experience was sketchy, and despite the fact that the restaurant is a long-time established business that is always packed, we aren't sure we want to give the restaurant a...