Saigon Kitchen — Restaurant in City of Ithaca

I am a huge fan of Vietnamese food and I enjoyed Vietnamese food from many different places including New York, LA, London, Seoul, Hong Kong, Chicago and Minneapolis (don't laugh - Minneapolis has a sizable Vietnamese population). Unfortunately, I have not been to Hanoi or another Vietnamese city but I have that on my bucket list.

I have tried a wide range of inexpensive traditional Vietnamese food to expensive fusion Vietnamese food. I can say without hesitation that the Vietnamese food that I had at this restaurant is the best I had in its price range and it is also better than the food I had at most Vietnamese restaurants at any price.

Every single appetizer (from summer rolls to spring rolls to Sriracha chicken wings) was excellent. Pho was simply the best I ever had with soup that tasted freshly made (with no funky old meat smell that you get from some restaurants) and every cut of meat (including meat balls, which I normally don't like at most restaurants) was delicious. All vegetables tasted fresh. I literally had to stop myself from pigging out and eating everything, down to the last drop soup.

I was shocked by how great this place is. I attended Cornell when restaurant options in Ithaca were limited to put it kindly. I never imagined that one of the best Vietnamese restaurants would make it hookah it's home. The restaurant was packed when I ate there, with people waiting 20 to 30 minutes for a table. According to reports, this place is constantly packed and it would be busy even if it were located in a major city like New York or Los Angeles, perhaps...

My boyfriend and I went here together for the very first time and had an amazing experience. The food was fresh, the service was quick and our waitress was very kind. The only drawback to our experience was the manchild in the restaurant when we arrived. He was sitting at a table with 2 others dining in as we were, and decided that screaming at the waitress, the chef, and 2 other employees was an appropriate course of action after there was a misunderstanding when he and my boyfriend ordered something similar and the manchild was accidentally brought the wrong dish. With an air of not so subtle racism, he accused them of doing it on purpose, and demanded all of their meals (his as well as his other two very unfortunate dining companions) be completely comped, to which the other unfortunate people dining with the manchild, all completely horrified of his behavior, paid their tab and wanted to leave quickly. The employees at the establishment handled the situation SO professionally and immediately did everything to remedy the situation, which made our experience there even better. We ordered food to go, and will definitely be recommending this location to others and returning here our next time in Ithaca. Hopefully manchild will stay at home and cook his own food next time- and again- kudos to the lovely...

I had the unfortunate experience of dining at this restaurant, and I must say it was truly disappointing. The service was abysmal - our server seemed disinterested and inattentive. To make matters worse, the side vegetable dish looked and tasted like it had been left out for days. It was a rotten, mushy mess that was completely inedible. I wouldn't recommend this place to anyone looking for a pleasant dining experience.

Oct 2023 I was asked to edit my previous review of this restaurant by Google. Unfortunately, this brought back some unpleasant memories again, particularly concerning the server's attitude and the quality of the salad. The salad I received looked like it had been sitting for a few days(the bottom salad was rotten), which was concerning and disappointing.

Upon complaining about the salad to another server, I was promptly brought a very fresh replacement within 20 seconds, leaving me puzzled. I couldn't help but wonder if there was a discrepancy in how patrons were treated. I noticed that a white couple who arrived a little earlier than I did received a fresh salad. It's confusing why I, as an older Asian woman, was served a stale salad while others received fresh ones.

This experience left me with a sour taste, and I'm not ever returning to the restaurant...