Taste of Saigon — Restaurant in Duluth

Taste of Saigon excels at dishes with fresh vegetables and flavorful sauces. I grew up on Chinese buffets with all the sweet, thick, syrupy sauces. This is not that type of food, and you should not assume that their food will be a copy of something else you've had elsewhere. Learn their strengths and order accordingly.

For service, this is a family-run business and over the twenty or so times we've eaten there, over the course of about five years, we've never had any complaints about our servers (nor food, once we tried a few things and found our favorite dishes).

The staff loves little kids. Though it's a sit-down restaurant, the servers chat with the little ones and even the cook will come out and wave at our toddlers and babies. It's really important for me as a mom that the places we go out to eat don't make me feel self-conscious about my little boy being a little boy, and Taste of Saigon has always been very welcoming.

They do not have delivery, but they do have takeout. Takeout is usually ready within 30 minutes.

Soda comes in a can without free refills. There are free refills on things like water and tea. Definitely ask first so you aren't surprised.

You can ask for extra vegetables. I don't think there's any upcharge for that, but you'll want to check first.

My first time there, I tried my normal Chinese favorite of "Sweet and Sour Chicken" which was a huge mistake. The fried meat bits came out hard and chewy, and the sweet and sour sauce was thinner and less sweet than I'm used to. After that, I took my brother's advice and started trying dishes with fresh vegetables and non-fried meats. I have to admit, this made a huge difference. Their vegetables are always fresh and flavorful. One of the milder dishes is "Chicken with Vegetables." I originally thought it would be bland (due to Chinese dishes that look the same) but it came out with a surprisingly fresh flavor that satisfies even my oversweet-lovin' palate.

Other favorites of my family are:

Reviewing three different dishes and dining experiences I've had here, so it's not just a one time review for me but over the course of a few years. Also keep in mind that this is both a combination of my own personal food preferences, as well as actual experiences with the location to determine this rating.

Sweet and Sour Chicken / Cream Cheese Wontons: I've personally never had something that was crispy and hard before in my life. The breading was hard to bite into and not what I expected, if this is normal then not many other places in the area seem to follow this trend. I've had crispy wontons, but something about these just seemed off or at least to my preferences. The flavor resembled what you might come to expect, but is a bit unique and not quite what you might find at another generic Asian restaurant.

General Tsos / White Rice: This order was for takeout, and at home discovered a mosquito in the white rice container upon opening it. Not sure what this means as far as food preparation goes, but it does make you think and put ideas in your head (mine at least). Tso's was passable but nothing to write home about, hate to say it but you could probably get better if you just randomly selected from any of the Chinese restaurants in Duluth and went with it instead. The flavor was a bit unique with this dish as well, but in a negative way in my opinion. The only worse Tso's I've had in Duluth was from Jade Fountain (which is now closed).

Beef Pho / Chicken Lo Mien: If there's one thing this place is known for, it's the pho. This is the to-go spot for pho in town if you were to ask someone. I finally had the opportunity to try this hyped up dish, and for me personally I don't have another pho dish to compare it to unfortunately as this was my first time trying it. It wasn't quite how I expected it, but it was interesting to say the least and didn't really taste like anything I've ever had before. As far as the Chicken Lo Mien goes, the chicken chunks in this looked and seemed like tofu, but it resembled mystery meat or chicken that injected with something (this is conjecture, but it did not seem like chicken in the traditional sense). If this was actually tofu then they did not get the order correct and instead gave me "chicken tofu" instead of "chicken" and if this was actually chicken then dear god.

Overall, I've given them a shot a couple of times now and I've learned that this place just isn't for me. I don't know if anyone else has had as negative of an experience as I have, and maybe I'm just very unlucky. I know a lot of people talk this place up in town as I previously mentioned and it is the "go to" spot for pho, but I'm going to try new things. I do feel bad leaving a 2/5 review, but the fact that I will be avoiding this in the future and cannot recommend it cements it for me.

As far as staff goes, everyone seems nice there and I have not had any problems with rude staff or anything of the like which I thought is worth mentioning, but does not change my overall opinion...

The menu has both Chinese and Vietnamese inspired dishes, but because there is such a variety, neither styles of dishes is any good. I expected decent Pho but the broth had no flavor! I ordered the simplest pho dish, beef flavored. How do you screw that up? The broth was bland and I don't taste any Pho spices at all. You can LITERALLY buy instant pho noodles with better tasting broth. There were no variety of beef cuts. No meatballs, no steak flanks or rare cuts, no tendons or tripe, only boiled pieces of beef that were VERY well done. The slices of jalapenos were rotting. It had a layer of gooey film over it and the flesh of the peppers were mushy and gelatinous. That was disgusting. I ordered the appetizer sampler which had wontons, chicken wings, fried battered shrimp and eggrolls. The egg rolls were made with either chicken or turkey and was dry as hell. If you want better eggrolls I recommend the ones off the rollers at the near by gas station or the Holiday gas station store up the road. The wontons were more wraps than filling. It was def not fresh because the cream cheese filling was not soft but firm and stale. The wings were decent, but had an odor similar to the kinds of wings that sat under a heat lamp for hours that you would find at a mom n pop Chinese restaurant that wasn't seeing a lot of customers. The battered shrimp was the most disappointing. If you peel away the excessive batter you will find that each shrimp is actually half a shrimp. It was butterflied, double battered to appear large, and when served it looks as though you get 4 shrimps but you actually only get 2. Probably the WORST Asian restaurant I have ever had. You can make better pho out of instant pho packages at Cub Foods with your own toppings. And no...