Lee's Bakery — Restaurant in Chamblee

My wife and I love Asian food and visit every single Chinatown during our travel. On our first visit to Atlanta we were looking for some kind of Asian food and every single article about food in Georgia was referring to Lee's Bakery. The high rating of 4.7 stars was also promising so we were hoping to have nice food. Not this time unfortunately.

1. Service. It was really bad. I had a feeling that the girl who was serving us tired of people. That happens. I work with/for people and have no doubts that most of us are really bad in some (if not in all) way. But, if you want to do business you have to be a hypocrite. Sounds rough, but it's true. I do not care how tired you are and what happened in your life recently. I came here with my wife to have good time. If you cannot do it, stay at home.
2. Goi Cuon - rice paper rolls with shrimps. Rice paper is too sticky, thick layers those makes it so difficult to bite. ONE small shrimp per roll and a lot of blend greens and vegetables. Oh, trust me, my wife and I LOVE greens and fresh vegetables. We can eat a huge plate of them and that's why we love Asian food actually. But these rolls were bad especially that greens and vegetables were not so fresh, were having absolutely blend taste and sauce was not helping much. 2/10
3. Egg Rolls (crispy) - classic one. For me MUST to order in any Asian restaurant. Greasy, with little filling, bad overall. 2/10
4. Pho. My wife had the one with beef steak, when I had a seafood version. On the good side the portions were huge. Also you will get a lot of proteins: as you can see on the pictures, there will be a lot of meat and seafood in your soup. Will it help? NO! The broth had the blend taste. Classical PHO broth being boiled for hours that makes it rich in taste and that's why it is so popular worldwide. Noodles were OK, you can buy any ramen pack and it will taste the same. Meats were completely blend. I have the feeling they were cooked a while ago and stored in the fridge, and so they completely lost any taste. Soybean sprout were not fresh, just look at the picture. 3/10
5. On the way out we bought mango smoothie with bubbles. We SAW that it was prepared not using fresh fruits like any other Asian store but with concentrate frozen mango juice and ice. So it is not smoothie, do not call it that. The taste was awful and my wife could not finish it though she loves Asian smoothies with bubbles. 0/10 Conclusion: overrated! Way too overrated. People who are giving 5 stars to this restaurant probably never had good Asian food, that you can buy not only in Chinatowns of Boston and San Francisco but also in food courts at Lotte Plaza and H-Mart supermarkets. Asian food is full of flavors and Lee's Bakery is not about flavors. It is...

Pros: Great tasting food at extremely low prices. Fresh baguettes are available to take home on your way, as are an assortment of southeast Asian delicacies I can't identify Cons: Could be cleaner and table seating is communal so you might be elbow to elbow with a stranger

Review: Lee's Bakery is one of the best finds in Atlanta! The pho broth is delicious and the beef noodle version is always really tasty. Everyone talks about the banh mi sandwich, and with good reason! Barbequed pork, sweet tangy pickled veggies, cucumber, and an optional slice of jalapeno all served on a freshly baked crusty baguette. Sirracha and hoisin sauces are on the table for both the soup and sandwich (available to go if you ask). The sandwich is the best in town and at $3.25 per sandwich, you may as well get two! Combo #1 is a half sandwich and bowl of the beef noodle pho for about $7 and the only way to beat that is to get the pho and a whole sandwich (which borders on too much food). Beverages are available in cans and bottles in coolers around the restaurant, as are a few ice cream desserts. If you're getting dessert though, do yourself a favor and try the smoothies. Strawberry is delicious and a taro or avocado smoothie are a completely new taste for most people. In addition to the dine in/take out items, you can grab fresh bread for your own home use. The French-style baguettes are perfectly crusty on the outside and soft in the middle - 3 for $1 or 10 for $3 sandwich sized loaves and the traditional large baguette is only $1.25.

One of my favorite...

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to take a picture of my food, but I got the tofu Bahn Mi sandwich.

I’ve heard a lot of great things about Lee’s Bakery, unfortunately I wasn’t very happy with the quality and the taste of the tofu sandwich. The tofu was not very flavorful and had a weird rubbery texture to it. I’m vegetarian so I eat tofu quite often and this was not a pleasant texture to eat. Same goes for the bread, it was extremely chewy.

I’m assuming the other meat dishes here are pretty good given the reviews, however, I wouldn’t recommend this place for a vegetarian to go to if you are looking for something more flavorful. I also have a feeling that they are not great with cross, contamination regulations and so Vegetarian/vegan food is probably cooked on or in the same oil or the same space as the meat is, so just be aware of that.

The best way that I can describe my experience with regard to the food is that it was very underwhelming. And was not memorable at all. As I mentioned above, there wasn’t really much of a flavor profile and so I just ate the sandwich because I was hungry and I definitely don’t think I would be coming back here and would probably try and find another place to get my vegetarian Vietnamese fix.

Again, nothing bad or negative towards the establishment. I just don’t think it’s the right fit for me, so take my review with a grain of salt and give it a try if you think this place fits your dietary needs and rest restrictions as well as that of...