Chopstix: Vietnamese, Korean, And Boba Tea — Restaurant in Chattanooga

My husband, 2 children, and I dined here tonight, Saturday, July 22, 2023. We saw this restaurant on our last visit to Chattanooga, picked up quick boba for our kids and received speedy, friendly service, and decided we would come back to try out the food.

First off, the boba tea is fantastic, even my ultra picky 6 year old loves it. It is a large for the price, well worth it.

On arrival tonight, we walked in, there was an employee at the front, he looked at us and didn't greet us, but continued with the busy work that was preoccupying him. I fully understand that he was working, but he was doing something that he could have literally just said something simple, like, "Hi, welcome to Chopstix!" Personally, I would like to feel welcomed when I enter a place of business, hence the role of hosts/hostesses. We were finally told that someone would be with us shortly, after waiting several minutes we were seated. We waited several minutes for staff to return for our order, but we were never asked for a drink order. Also, $2.70 for a soda is insane, considering it's not refillable. I did verify that there were no fountain drinks available with the staff, 2.70 for a single can or bottle is crazy.

The food arrived after probably 20 minutes or so, didn't take a terribly long time, BUT we were served our meals at different times. Generally, I feel it's best that meals in a restaurant be served to the group all together. I got my food, then my husband and son got theirs a couple minutes after, and finally my 6 year old received his meal.

$9 for chicken nuggets and fries, didn't include a drink, so 9 for just nuggets and fries. For the price, I expected more than cheap dinosaur nuggets. You have the ingredients for fried chicken, make tenders or nuggets that are worth that price, it would be so much better.

The pho was decent, it seemed... lacking, in complexity. It was very simple, the depth of flavor could be improved.

The spicy chicken wings were good. I expected a bigger crunch from the wing and stronger spicy flavor in the sauce, but overall it was decent. The fried rice was not what I was hoping for, but it wasn't bad.

Banh mi was, well, my Lao/Viet husband said, "it's white people banh mi" So pretty much the authenticity isn't there. It's overpriced for the size and quality. We have had amazing authentic banh mi, in both Nashville and Atlanta that were at most 6 dollars.

In total, we had like 4 different people check in on us, but it felt like we hardly ever had service, and what we did have...

Not very authentic. We ordered the Korean spiced Chicken wing appetizer, Noodles with BBQ pork, BBQ Pork chop and Kalbi. All three entrees were less than mediocre. The Bun (vermicelli dish with BBQ pork) was very tasteless. The BBQ was dyed the usual red color but seriously lacked flavor, was overcooked and dry. It did not have a chargrilled taste, lacked the typical Vietnamese seasoning and was extremely bland. If you have tasted authentic Bun, you would really have a hard time eating this. The nuoc cham (Vietnamese dipping sauce) that came with it was nothing close to nuoc cham. It lacked fish sauce and sugar (2 important ingredients). It was as if they used the typical garlic chili sauce, added water and some soy sauce. It was truly bad. The vermicelli was overcooked and had been soaked in water -- probably to keep it from sticking. But soaking in water after cooking makes it tasteless and unable to soak up the dipping sauce. I get why you would cook it ahead of time but maybe you should cook it and then portion it out and don't soak in water after. The same goes for the BBQ pork chops. It was the same meat as the Bun -- tasteless, overcooked, dry and unappealing. The Kalbi came served with jasmine rice -- which is an atrocity. Don't claim you serve Korean if you don't even use Korean rice. The banchan, which really can't count as banchan, were some black beans, poorly pickled sliced radish and carrots and bland kimchi. The only delicious dish was the Korean spiced Chicken wings -- albeit expensive as an appetizer -- $11.95 for 8 wings. I was going to order boba tea but saw from other tables' order that they were served in a short cup -- very strange -- so decided not to order. The place is very cute and has much potential but they need to go back to the drawing board regarding the recipes. After all, patrons go to restaurants to eat the food. And, after our food was served, no one came to ask us how the food was so we couldn't even offer feedback. I ended up flagging down a server to ask for fish sauce in order to be able to eat the totally bland vermicelli dish. Vietnamese and Korean food are infamous for being highly seasoned and flavorful -- definitely not the...

I am constantly disappointed by this restaurant, but I will leave a fair review. For starters, they do have the best boba tea in town. Smooth, tasty, good portion options and great packaging. I also love their pho. Some people say it's tasteless, but I don't agree. It had a healing feeling when you eat it, ingredients are very fresh. My issue is that they're inconsistent and apparently treat their online orders like 2nd class customers. Is it because we aren't face to face you feel comfortable giving poor quality food and service? I've been in person twice and the experiences were okay, but this was a couple of years ago, maybe things have improved. As far as ordering online though, I've gotten the fried shrimp where the container was burnt through (shrimp must have been too hot when they put it in the Styrofoam container), I have ordered the pho with very little in the way of beef provided. So I started ordering extra...Well this time they didn't give me extra beef or noodles like requested and I paid extra for it. It's an option! One container of the pho broth looked like we got given whatever was left, no extra veggies like ordered either. The wings are awesome, but I stopped ordering due to the inconsistent quality (sometimes meaty and hot, sometimes anemic and cold). I would really like to see management at this restaurant tighten things up so they can be consistent with their service. I shouldn't have a 50/50 chance of having a good experience each time. I hope they read their reviews and take this into consideration. We have spent a lot of money here and just want the service to improve. Online orders are still orders from local customers, so if we have a bad experience that way, it could really detour someone from going in to spend their...