Saigon Garden — Restaurant in Conover

This was my 1st time eating at this restaurant. I am slightly disappointed because the food was really bland. As a Vietnamese person, I’ve grown up with Vietnamese food so I know what good tastes like and sadly this wasn’t it. Bun Bo Hue was what I ordered. The broth tasted as if it had been diluted. It had such little flavor that I had to even add salt to the broth…. IN ALL OF MY 29 YEARS of life I have NEVER needed to add salt to Bun Bo Hue— never needed to add salt to any Vietnamese noodle soup. Never ever. To me, this was a new all-time low. I think lack of staff may have something to do with the boring flavors.

As for my husband (White American), he ordered Vermicelli salad with shrimp/egg roll/and pork. This is something he consistently orders from Vietnamese restaurants. Similar to my experience, he found the food dull… That it didn’t have that “kick”.

Adding a bit of salt to our food slightly improved the taste.

As for the quality of customer service... This restaurant business is clearly understaffed which is wrecking the work flow. The place was busy but it was obvious that the waitresses-waiters were struggling to keep up the pace of clearing tables and getting people seated.

My waitress took forever to give us our bill. Once she grabbed the bill and gave it to us, she told us she’ll come back and get it from us. Strangely, she never came back for it.

Instead she focused on cleaning two tables… one of which was across from me. She walked away and didn’t even grab my credit card and bill… so I called out to her. I asked if I needed to pay up front. She said yes. Why didn’t she say so when she gave us the bill?

It would’ve been more courteous and efficient had she told us to go to the cashier to pay instead of instructing us to wait for her to come back and get the...

My first visit to Saigon Garden exceeded my expectations. I am vegan and gluten free. Our waitress was knowledgeable about veganism and was able to point me in the direction of what to order. I ordered V6 from the vegetarian section of the menu and it came with a delicious sweet and sour vinegar sauce to pour over the meal - all plant based to my knowledge.

However, my second visit at Saigon Garden was not so good. I ordered the same thing off of the vegetarian menu from the first time, V6. This time the sauce was completely different. It tasted nasty. Come to find out, our waitress gave both me and my mom (who ordered the same thing that I did) a sauce made with fish sauce. I knew as soon as I took my first bite that it tasted way different than the first time. After asking our waitress what the sauce is made from she said, fish sauce, sugar, and vinegar. The waitress apologized and said you have to ask for the vegetarian sauce. My question is: why do I have to ask for vegetarian sauce when I’m obviously ordering off of the vegetarian specific menu?

Another alternative is to give the customer an option for what sauce they want. If someone is new to the restaurant then how will they know the sauce isn’t vegetarian /vegan if you don’t even offer it...

Ehhhh.... finally got to try this place while in town. Everything was very bland. You can say it's very watered down. We ordered the spring rolls, house Fried Rice, combination pho and wings. The Pho was super oily and had no flavor. I had to dress it up to make it somewhat edible. The meat variety was very disappointing, especially with 2 pieces of meatball that were already cut in 1/4th's. Fried Rice was very plain, you could taste the peanut oil over powering any flavor. Wings were wings, nothing special. Spring rolls were weak as well. The peanut sauce was the most disappointing as it liquidy like water. Need I say more about that? Food came out in timely manner, took a while to get a drink order (10 minutes?). I had time to watch a short segment of nat geo before being greeted. Plenty of staff working but didn't seem any sense of direction. Would not be a place I'd recommend. This is more of a tex mex version of Vietnamese food. It's there but not it, very...