Phở Tô Châu Restaurant — Restaurant in Honolulu

Chinatown is filled with Pho (Vietnamese rice noodle) places. And Pho To Chau is the "soup nazi" version of it. The Pho soup/broth is hot. The noodle is excellent. The meats are tender. The vegetable is fresh. The service is enjoyable if you're understanding. Make sure you follow the order/direction. Key to be on the good list. Wait to be seated by standing at the line outside the door. If there is no line (rarely happen), you start the line at the door in the middle. Never go inside and seat yourselves down. When you're seated, don't place the order with the auntie that clear the table. She only clear the table, give you menu if you need it, and get you water or Vietnamese coffee. The owner will come and take your order. They have their system down. Don't question me why the other lady can't take order. When the owner lady come, you better know what you going to get. Keep your questions to the minimum, she really want to just take your order. Order Pho with whatever beef product you want. Don't get the "combination" if you're not adventurous. There will be beef parts. Sizes of order is either medium or large. "Meat outside" means that you want them to bring you the meat raw and you "cook" it in your bowl with the super hot soup. Ask them to cook the beanspout if you don't want the beanspout to cool you soup too quickly. That's it. She's will bring you the order. Use the hoisin sauce and hot sauce (one factory made, and one restaurant made) Enjoy your Pho! Pardon the service. BTW, pay up at the counter. They hardly come and give...

Heard that this is the best pho in Honolulu and coming from an area close to Little Saigon, we had to try it out.

When we arrived there was no wait for a table so we were seated right away. Expected someone to come take our order within a couple minutes of us sitting down like at other pho places especially because they had a short menu, but this was not the case.

After waiting around 5-10 minutes, my husband needed to use the bathroom, but as soon as he stood up, one of the ladies said to sit down because someone would be coming to take our order very soon. He told them he just needed to use the bathroom and so he went. After coming back, we waited some more for someone to come take our order. It was a total of 20 minutes before we got to order.

At that point we noticed a line starting to form outside the restaurant and wondered if they would speed things up to get us out and get new customers in. Nope! They took their time to get our pho out and provided the most garnishes we have ever seen to come out with bowls of pho.

I ordered a regular size and my husband ordered an extra large. I should have ordered at least a medium because that regular bowl was so tiny that my husband was kind enough to share some of his noodles with me.

The taste of the pho was on par with the pho places back home, if not better than some! So even though we had to wait a while in the beginning, we thoroughly enjoyed their pho and cannot knock...

Our first visit to Phở Tô Châu started horribly when we were rudely instructed by the waitress (an older lady) to wait back outside, after we had entered the restaurant to ask for a table (we swear we couldn’t see any signs to line up outside). Never mind, we heard good things about the phở and were willing to wait patiently and give this place a chance. When we were finally seated, it took over 20 minutes to get a hold of the right person (another old lady) to place our orders. We couldn’t just order with the same lady who showed us to our table and brought us ice water to drink?

Apparently, they have created their own rules in this restaurant - one lady clears the table and seats the guests and another (the owner) who takes the orders and accepts payments (cash only)... and you’re supposed to feel grateful that you’re allowed to be in their restaurant, getting served by them, and being able to consume their famous beef noodle soup?!

In the end, we did enjoy the phở that was served to us very much because it was tasty and authentic. However, the terrible service left a bad taste in our mouths.

Additional note: Saw some other guests walk in, told to go back outside (by the same old lady) and wait there, and then promptly left angrily.

Advice: Make sure you’re familiar and versed in their rules before visiting...