Kim Tài — Restaurant in Houston

Not sure how this place has such an almost 5 star rating. We have been here before & I wanted to give them another shake before leaving a review. The dishes are inexpensive, but most of the standard dishes are lacking quality.

We were downtown doing a funday Sunday, so we came for a late lunch ~1:30pm & ordered:

A01 - 3 shrimp spring rolls = the rice paper is a bit dry, so they were not recently freshly made, plus the dipping sauce is mostly hoision with some chopped peanuts vs a more peanut buttery sauce. I used the leftover egg roll fish sauce to dip my spring roll to make it more edible. I'm not vietnamese & make this dish including the dipping sauce better at home. Would not recommend this dish.

A02 - 4 egg rolls = hot & delicious plus the fish dipping sauce is good. Highly recommend.

P08 - large pho dac biet = came out steaming hot. The broth, noodles, meat, & tendon were ok / mediocre. It looked like they only gave us 1 cut of meat & tendon, definitely missing the meatballs, which I pointed out to the guy that was taking the orders & delivering the food to the tables. The guy checked with "her" in the back, assuming the cook, & she confirmed that she messed up & didn't include meatballs in our pho. Oddly, they didn't give us any meatballs to fix our order. 🤔 I've had much better pho's around Houston.

S03 - grilled pork banh mi = the bread is more like an Italian bread than crusty French bread. The meat was ok / mediocre. I've had much better grilled pork & banh mi's around Houston, altho this dish was probably better than their pho tho.

Additionally, service was a bit slow this time & oddly, they didn't fix the missing meatballs, but the last time it was prompt. And the place is surpisingly dirty & run down inside especially the bathrooms so I imagine the kitchen is not...

I ran into Kim Tai years ago when I was lost driving around downtown Houston. I decided to pull in and parked in one of the 4 available slots in this modest and charming hole in the wall. At that time, the business acumen appeared hungry and desperate to please customers, and so the food was fresh, the rice was piping hot, and I can still remember the fresh herbs that came along with my dish. My experience there this past week was the total opposite.

When I first walked in I was excited, especially since there was little cute kid crawling around and making all kinds of noise. I've got eternal baby fever, so the sound of children always makes me smile and very happy. That joy quickly dissolved as soon as I ordered and decided to wash my hands before digging in.

Although I'm not really a stickler for bathrooms, OMG, this place smelled like a sewer. I kid you not. I'm not one to exaggerate and know that these reviews are taken seriously, but come on, how do you tolerate the stench at work?!? I decided to let it go and just enjoy my chicken curry.

The chicken curry arrived promptly and you could immediately tell that it was recooked, rehashed, and as we liked to say, "refried." By refried I mean microwaved and seemingly from last week's batch. As the other reviews have already noted, this apparently their modus operandi...

My guess is that the original owners are older and tired and the 'new generation' has taken over; however, its a far cry from the little hole in the wall I once accidently ran into. For their sake, and for the sake of that cute little child, my hope is that they will take pride in their business, their heritage, and their customers...and do something that honors the ancestors that struggled so hard to...

As a person lucky enough to have access to real homemade Pho from time to time, I was pretty impressed with their beef Pho. There is a huge difference between homemade and restaurant Pho, but as far as take out, this was among the better ones I have had around town. I was kind of surprised that they don't put a bowl in the to go order. I don't know if that is something you need to ask for or not, but I am sure they don't intend for you to eat it out of the styrofoam container, it wouldn't have even held all the soup, and the soup was very very hot so from my past expierences, styrofoam and high heat don't mix well. I was bringing it home and I have a bowl to put it in, but if I wasn't coming home, I don't know how I would have eaten it. Every other restraunt I have ever ordered pho from has a bowl with it so you can actually eat it. It is kind of nice because it is all in one and then to the trash, nothing to wash, kind of like to go is meant to be. When I first opened the bag I didn't think they gave me enough soup, but after putting it all together, it was an ample amount after all. I will say, they do not skimp on the meat! I ordered the steak, meatball, and brisket P04. They gave me a ton of meat and nice amouth of vermicilli. They don't give you a ton of veggies and bean sprouts like a lot of places, but they do offer some. I am sure I could ask for more now that I know. The only thing I didn't love is, a lot of places use fatty brisket and this just seemed to be brisket with no fat. I know every place has their own style and if you can't decide if you want to try their pho here, all in all, the reviews don't lie, this place has...