Pho Ha Noi — Restaurant in Hillsboro

I saw this place was in the process of opening up a few months back and was excited to see that it was the grand opening today. I got there with high hopes since it seemed like a very authentic Vietnamese restaurant based off the menu and the interactions I had with workers on the phone. We got there as soon as the doors opened at 5pm and were the first to place our order. We told the cashier that we wanted our food to go which she seemed to understand. Later on, it was apparent that she did not understand since our receipts said “Dine In.” Another worker also approached us around 35 minutes later and said she “heard we wanted the food to go since the wait was taking so long.” This was true, but we originally wanted the food to go since we had plans. We waited for approximately 45 minutes for 2 banh mi and 1 order of spring rolls. Another group of people that arrived after us got all of their food before we did. The food took so long that we were even debating asking for a refund and going to a different Vietnamese restaurant. The banh mi was dry, didn’t have much flavor, and was not cut in half. There was also a jalapeño in mine which I was unpleasantly surprised by. I do not like jalapeños and have never had a jalapeño in my banh mi. The spring rolls were better than the banh mi, but the outer wrap lacked crispiness. I would not wait over 45 minutes for either of them again. Overall, I am very disappointed and will not be returning unless...

I am PASSIONATE about food, especially Vietnamese food. Coming from Los Angeles (Orange County has one of the best viet food in the country) and having lived in Vietnam for many years, I have a very high standard for Viet food.

Their Bun Rieu here is…just incredible. The pork bone broth has incredible depth and is balanced really from the acidity of the tomatoes. They don’t skimp out on toppings. The highlight of the bowl for me is their rieu, the minced pork and crab mixture. I think this is what sets out good bun rieu from amazing bun rieu. I can tell they spent a great deal of time cooking it at a low heat to be able to achieve such a tender and delicate texture. Overcooked pork mince and crab is just unappetizing.

My second favorite item on the menu is their Bun Bo Hue. She told me she uses many different types of beef bones, beef, and pork to be able to achieve more depth in their stock. Lemongrass HAS TO be in the forefront of a good bowl of bun bo hue in tandem with a rich stock and they do a great job at this. Again, they don’t skimp out on toppings.

I know service can sometimes be difficult for them to navigate. Personally, I couldn’t care less about the service at Asian restaurants, as long as the food is good! This is how it is in most of Southeast Asia! So please have some empathy and patience when you dine at family owned restaurants.

I can’t comment about their pho. I’m not a huge pho guy, because bun rieu and bun...

This place was only 5 min from my work so I came here for 1hr lunch and was excited to try out a new Vietnamese restaurant. We came here 5 days after their grand opening. However I waited at least 25min for a bowl of round steak pho but there were not many customers inside, most of them were just sitting and waiting for their food. The phở came out with nice portion but the taste was not up to my expectation. Round steak was dry but soft. At least they used the right kind of noodles for phở. The broth was fatty and cloudy. My husband ordered grilled pork with rice dish and he was completely disappointed with the food quality. Pork was very dry & hard like jerky (feel like air-fried meat rather than grilled meat). No flavor, no onion oil, no fish sauce, no silverware included. He had to ask for silverware & fish sauce. We both could not finish our dishes because they were bad even we were still hungry. Overall it was a bad experience for us. We saw the owner went around and checked on everyone, but she did not ask us how we were (I guess she saw our leftover and was afraid to ask!), so we did not have a chance to tell her what went wrong with our food. I don't think we ever come back to this place, unless they are open to take in constructive feedbacks and...