Phở 79 — Restaurant in Garden Grove

I had visited Pho 79 once before about four years ago, and after seeing that this restaurant had won a Michelin Bib Gourmand award, I was inspired to come back and eat another meal. The first time I came, I had ordered the ox tail pho noodle soup, and it was the best pho that I had ever had. I also don’t think that I have had a pho that has topped it ever since. This statement holds true, as after my visit tonight, I still believe that this is the best pho that I have had.

Pho 79 is CASH ONLY.

Note that the restaurant does not accept card and only takes cash. It really annoys me when locations are cash only, but it is less troublesome when I am aware of the fact before hand.

If there is one thing that I remembered from last time, it is that their portion sizes are humongous. I ordered a medium pho with ox tail, and I didn’t even come close to finishing that. Perhaps you can attempt to consume the large size if you have the belly of a god.

The prices are cheap and the options are many. There are multiple pho noodle soups with different meat toppings that you can chose from, and the ox tail (#39) that you can add as a side. Alternatively, you can order a plain rice noodle soup (#38) and get the ox tail on the side if you plan on getting an ox tail noodle soup, as these two items are already plenty.

The restaurant also recommends their crispy fried egg rolls (#1), as their most popular item.

What makes this bowl of noodles so good is the combination of the rich and tasty broth with the tender melt in your mouth flavorful ox tail. One side of ox tail provides a large amount of meat that you can toss into your bowl to add some rich beef flavor, combining the fattiness of the meat with the chewy noodles. Throw in some provides peppers, herbs, or bean sprouts, and you got yourself a full on bowl of noodles ready to feast on.

Highly recommend. At peak hours there may be a wait, but off hours are pretty easy to get a seat. There is a fair amount of parking right next to the restaurant so hopefully that shouldn’t...

CASH ONLY Came here to eat on a Saturday afternoon, pre- hurricane weather. The lines were long despite the gloomy sky XD. Here, you have to put down your name and wait to be called. And don't be surprised to do this part yourself. Don't do what others did, stand in 'line' without putting down your name because soon you will realize there is no line or it seems that there might be two or three lines.

Food: Oxtail - cooked to perfection! Meat easily fell off the bones. Very flavorful because the pho broth is well saturated.

Pho (30&32?) they are basically the same. Just that 32 is in a giant bowl with extra ingredients. Although the broth is not too salty. We were still reaching for water after, just felt very thirsty. The meat quality is just so so. Pretty rough for brisket meat. I am a bit disappointed today with the quality of the meat. Feel free to ask for more bean sprouts and herbs.

Spring Roll with shrimp and grilled pork: decent. The dressing is the peanut sauce. I feel this combination works better with the fish sauce dressing. Not the peanut dressing. Because grilled pork already has a rich taste. I personally prefer a lighter dressing when the food is rich already.

So...this place is very busy and customers are usually under served. If you need anything you have to wait forever or just get up and get it yourself. The ambiance is noisy and loud. Minimum decoration. You can tell the restaurant put more effort into food quality than on the aesthetics.

Parking: small parking lot in the back for free. But on a busy day like this we parked three block down in the residential...

The food was fantastic. However, one of employees gave us rude attitude. He told us that we could pay with Zelle before we sat at the table. At one point he came to our table to ask if we needed help and we said no thank you. At the end to pay we asked if we could Zelle him to pay for the bill and he rudely and frustratedly said that he had already asked us but we said no. We then realized we misunderstood him earlier as well as he misunderstood us. We couldn’t understand his accent and he began getting aggressive with us getting loud, walking away and back to us, pointing at us. He tried explaining his method of us zelleing him 40 and him giving us 40 dollars in cash. We started feeling uncomfortable with the situation but when we asked why 40 if our bill is 30 he got more aggressive. We couldn’t understand him and he tried typing in my Zelle app for me which I did not appreciate. He said he was busy and had to help other customers which was very rude. We were already having trouble understanding his accent and him being aggressive made it worse, we didn’t want to speak with him anymore and wished for him to leave us alone. He yelled at us and we told him to stop his attitude. We ended up going to the ATM to get cash to pay for the food and still he didn’t apologize for his attitude or the misunderstanding. What a great restaurant. It’s the most rude...