South Vietnam House — Restaurant in Fredericksburg

The staff: The staff was polite but somewhat aloof. They took our order, delivered the order, and then brought the check when we were done. Nothing out of the ordinary, not too slow.

The atmosphere: While the interior of the restaurant was clean, the place had a dingy feel to it like the mood lighting was more accidental and an effort to save electricity than to create an atmosphere.

The food: We ordered crispy spring ($5.50) and garden ($5.95) rolls, papaya salad with shrimp ($14.95), an entree of the clay pot with beef ($17.95) and the large combo Pho P6 ($15.95).

The spring rolls were very overcooked and tasted both very greasy, fishy, and somehow too dry.

The papaya salad was overall very bland, almost no flavor besides salt, and was very soggy. In addition, the papaya salad had VERY sketchy looking shrimp which were for some reason cut in half lengthwise (in what looked like an attempt to make the dish appear that it had more than the 4 whole shrimp that it did).

The garden rolls were actually pretty good. Good texture and a decent balance of fillings, served with peanut dipping sauce.

The Pho was a bit of a let down. First off was the clear, light tan broth that was pretty much entirely flavorless. The core of a good pho is the broth and this was an absolute travesty of a broth, if you can even call it that. The broth was so bland I can only imagine they either diluted the main batch until it was mostly plain water, or used a very sad concentrate or mix and microwaved it. The pho also came with very little meat for a $15.95 bowl. There was, combined, maybe 3 ounces of meat. The tripe was two small slivers, meatball was a single meatball cut into 4ths, other meat a few slices floating. To put it a different way, you would be hard pressed to make a sandwich with how little meat was in the pho. The noodles were not bad, and probably the only redeeming quality of the pho, but it would be pretty hard to mess up a pre-made noodle. The veggies (bean sprouts, lime wedge, jalapeno and basil) were ok, if not starting to near the end of their shelf lives.

The clay pot was an absolute tragedy. Bland, soggy, and small. Sadness in a bowl. Imagine a three day old TV dinner that has been frozen and defrosted a dozen times and then cooked in a sauna with a bunch of sweaty yaks. The clay pot was a total disappointment clearly spooned out of a microwave dish into the serving bowl. Why this dish is on the menu is a mystery as it was both the most expensive and least appetizing thing I have ever eaten at a Vietnamese restaurant. Oh and if you thought the pho was lacking in meat, the "Clay Pot with Beef" was more like "Clay Pot with something that might be beef, but only like 1 ounce of it". The vegetables were so soggy you could probably have pressed a glass of liquid from them, and they tasted so off that my wife couldn't eat them without getting grossed out. If this was in my fridge I would have assumed it had spoiled days ago just from the pathetic look of it.

Summary: I like to think I have an open mind. I have eaten a lot of food from all over the place and am always open to trying new things. I have had a lot of Pho dishes. Some of it has been great, others have been just ok, but something they all had in common was a rich, savory broth that has a distinct mouth watering aroma and taste. I have also had a lot of Thai and Vietnamese dishes in general, and the one thing that unites all of them is distinct, bright, and aromatic flavors that are clearly distinguishable and delicious.

South Vietnam House has none of that. This is the most disappointing "Vietnamese" food I have ever eaten in my life. Lackluster and inadequate are too generous of terms to describe the food here, this is closer to disappointing, depressing, and unsatisfactory. There was no flavor, spice, or love in their dishes. There was only blandness and the dying gasps of what I can assume is the ghost of the original restaurant.

Heed the other reviews, lest you make the same mistake I did. Eat somewhere else where the main ingredient is...

This USED to be a nice place, been going there for 10 plus years when it was run by the 3 sisters. However, we went back under the new ownership. Here is what we noticed, 1. It is now self serve order where you don't have waiter service. Also, because of the self service setup, the system asks you to leave a tip even before you get your food? There is 1 person behind the counter who is clearly not focused on his customers. We asked for water 3 times bc he kept forgotting, and he replied "I am only 1 person". To add, during this time the restaurant was empty...there was only 1 other table with a couple sitting there. 2. When the food came out, they forgot to bring the pho side dishes, and we had to wait another 10 minutes, while our pho was getting cold before eating bc he refused to get the side dishes. Instead, a cook from the kitchen had to deliver it to us and still didnt have water. 3. The food is noticeably bad quality and cheap. The meat was less, and sprouts/greens were brown from aging. 4. Also, we ordered ice coffee which took 30 minutes and what makes it worst is that we got quarter size coffee that tasted extremely bad. Couldn't even drink it. Aside from the poor food quality, and the bad service, we will never go back to eat here. Can't believe we pre-paid tip for such an awful...

First is about the price: its very pricey comparing to other Vietnamese or high end restaurant. It may be normal around here but an order of stirfried lemongrass beef ( which is disgusting by the way, from my Vietnamese perspective) cost $15. A plate of beef papaya salad cost $11 which has 5 thin slices of beef ( yes, I could count them because they are very little). The stirfried lemongrass beef very smelly like old beef was being used. Second is the customer service: The server saw my disgusting look about the food, she told the chef. One Vietnamese lady ( either the chef or owner) came out to ask me what's wrong with the food. I said the food has wierd smell and has carrot in it. She said it is fish sauce. Then I asked if I could switch it for a diferent order. She just kept silence. Normally, at any other restaurants, if you don't like the food, they don't even charge you or willing to exchange for a new dish to make you happy. She offered me none of that. If she didn't want to resolve the problem, why even bothered asking me what went wrong????? Anyhow, I ended up leaving everything back after taking one bite of the beef, didn't even touch the rice that came with it. Pricey and not very smart customer service, I...