Phin Smith | Garden Grove — Restaurant in Garden Grove

One of the most popular spots on Main Street Garden Grove is this Vietnamese coffee shop—Phin Smith. It’s easy to spot with its signature blue Vespa parked out front. The whole place has a great vibe inside and out, and they sell their own roasted coffee beans for $16 a bag. If you’ve had Vietnamese coffee before, you’ll know that it has a distinctive flavor profile compared to other coffee beans.

Their menu is pretty simple, focusing mainly on drip and specialty coffees, with an emphasis on custom brews and teas. The coffee options were so unique that I didn’t know what to order at first. After quickly scrolling through some photos online, I decided to follow my gut and order the drink with green on top (which I assumed was matcha) and coffee at the bottom. So I asked, “Which one is this on the menu?” The barista replied, “Oh, that’s our Matcha Sua Da—it’s a secret menu item!” I guess I got lucky, so of course, I had to try this “secret” drink.

Here’s where things got really interesting: when I pulled out my card to pay, the barista told me, “No need to pay yet. I’ll make the drink first, and you can try it. If you don’t like it, I can adjust it to your taste. If you’re still not satisfied, I can make you something else.” I thought this service might be exclusive to more expensive custom drinks, but it wasn’t! This is their standard practice for all orders. At $6.50 for a specialty coffee, it’s around the same price as Starbucks, but their approach (focusing on instant customer feedback) is top-notch! 👏🏻

Once I approved the drink after trying it, I headed over to the counter next to the canelé stall to pay. They don’t ring up your order when you first place it, so when it’s time to pay, you have to tell the cashier what you ordered, and then they charge you. This is probably because if you don’t like what you ordered and switch to something else, it avoids the hassle of refunding and recharging the order. It’s a unique system I hadn’t encountered before, but it makes sense.

The place was pretty packed, with lots of seating inside, but since the weather was nice, I chose to sit outside and do some people-watching. There’s a fence separating the seating area from the street, so it feels safe.

As for the coffee itself, it was slightly bitter, but the aroma was rich, and the matcha added just the right touch of sweetness to balance out the bitterness. I’d never had a flavor combination like this before, and I really enjoyed it! My friend also enjoyed her O’ahu Joe.

📍12921 Main St, Garden...

Fantastic service and carefully crafted drinks - baristas take care to remember your name and make your experience very comfortable and relaxed.

The drinks are fantastic - they're loaded with flavor without simply adding sweetener.

Hands down the best Vietnamese coffee I've ever had; however, it was insanely strong so I'd recommend to those strong of heart only.

I was skeptical about the charcoal latte at first, but it's smooth, creamy and tastes like cookies and cream. My SO and I are trying to work through the full menu and explore, but we still ordered the charcoal latte a second time.

The matcha latte was a strong, clean matcha flavor with just a hint of the bitter bite of matcha enveloped in creamy goodness; however, if I had to recommend a drink or two, the matcha latte wouldn't be one of them. While it's a fantastic drink, I think the more "interesting" flavors, including the seasonals, and charcoal latte that simply cannot be replicated elsewhere are better.

I definitely recommend trying the seasonal drinks - for Valentine's there was an aromatic cherry blossom drink that left me warm, relaxed and fulfilled. Currently (Apr 8 2019) they have a Sapa peach iced white tea that packs a punch of peach flavor. Very refreshing, slightly on the sweeter side, but so much peach flavor it seemed that all the sugar came from incredibly ripe peaches.

It's also a nice place to work - there's wifi and seating, but the space definitely fills up during the day. There's a notable amount of noise, but the sound is fairly washed out and I've had no problem working through it as white noise.

There are outlets as well at some of the spaces, and the clientele are friendly and hospitable (many commiserating, drowning-in-work college students) who are happy to watch over a charging laptop if you can't get a seat near the outlets.

Would definitely recommend, my SO and I drive about 15 mins to get here and try to go around every week.

Pictured are the charcoal latte and...

This is my 7th here, as I have tried several of their drinks and even introduced some friends to this place, now I am regretting bringing them here. After trying some the blended coconut coffees and banana coffees and marchas and since this place as I was told is recipe driven only, meaning they will not do any substitution of any kind regarding sugar levels or sweeteners, I was like oh wow for reals??? Any ways I bear those situations couple of times and moved to try the pour over (drip coffee) instead. So since I was able to ordered it with one or two spoon of brown sugar and half milk I kind of like that ability to make it to close to what I really wanted in their others that for whatever non-sense policy can’t request not to put condensed milk in them, so long story short today I came here to have the regular pour over with one brown sugar and oat milk, and the guy next to my barista said sorry we don’t have that… I was like; you don’t have it or you ran out of it? He said we do t put brown sugar in the pour over, we can do the milk but nothing else, I replied I have had it 4 times the same way before, he said sorry we don’t do it, I said you mean you don’t do it cuz four other baristas have done it, and they were courteous about it, he said no we cannot do and that’s it….😶😶😶 I was like this guy if it was another coffee place would be getting fired…. You don’t treat customers that way, Period…. So as I brought friends here and introduced them, I will make sure they become aware of todays event and let them make their own choice but be aware of the new attitude they have taken here, which is unethical and not consumer friendly…too bad the guy didn’t have a name tag on him I will be please to state the name for the record…. So this is my last time coming here, and will hopefully find a more customer and customer friendly place with good...