Pho Cat Sang — Restaurant in Kent

Heading home tonight (Friday January 24, 2025) and figured I would pick up a quick dinner for the wife and I as the kids were already getting a Papa Murphy’s.

I would estimate we’ve eaten at somewhere around 25 Vietnamese places over the past decade or so in the Seattle area including all the heavy hitters from when we lived near Little Saigon.

This place was fine. Wife had a tofu bahn mi and fresh rolls (her typical order across dozens of places). The fresh rolls weren’t that great and the sandwich was decent after we toasted the bread and added some peanut sauce. Not bad or anything and she would be willing to eat it again but would go to another place if there was an option.

Myself I wasn’t feeling very Vietnamese tonight so I just got a chicken teriyaki plate. It was also fine. I liked the Vietnamese style busted up rice and that the side salad was mostly shredded cabbage and carrots. That gave nice crunch when I mixed up the rice, chicken, and salad in the manner I enjoy.

Overall this restaurant is perfectly adequate but not impressive. This review is only based on what I brought home tonight. If I lived in one of the neighborhoods right nearby I would likely stop by a few times a year...

Ordered the Spring Rolls, Pho with steak and tripe (huge fan of tripe), and a black coffee.

Spring rolls were standard, shrimp, noodles, mystery meat, and salad inside. The peanut sauce was amazing though, it was exactly what was expected with that peanut flavor coming through. Peanut sauce is super hard to nail, since I'm not a fan of the super soy sauce and rice vinegar heavy sauces.

Black Coffee was a mistake on my end, so no points docked there. It's Thai Coffee, so I should have grabbed cream or milk with it.

As for the Pho, which has been praised by many reviews, it has its ups and downs. The ups are that the broth, steak, tripe, and extras were amazing. The down was the noodles were a bit off, about 5 minutes into eating they got super mushy, like soggy cereal that falls apart if you press a piece to the roof of your mouth. It's normal to have noodles with Pho after a super long time (15 minutes), but after a short amount of time it is a bit concerning.

Overall, the food was great except for the noods in the Pho, but it might have been an off day? Definitely plan on...

I was told about this spot from a near stranger as I was conflicted between driving into the Int’l District for a Banh Mi I’m familiar with or trying out a new fish n chips spot in the Rainier Valley. I was convinced to give this pot a shot. On my first visit I ordered 2 grilled pork Banh Mi, and an order each of the shrimp rolls and the egg rolls and got them all to go. The Banh Mi were respectable and the shrimp rolls were reasonable but I was very disappointed in the egg rolls. Very small and overpriced. Overall I felt the food was pretty expensive. My bill was nearly $24 - $5.95/sandwich, $4.75 for each roll order. After my first visit I did decide to return but only for the Banh Mi. 3 sandwiches was just under $20. This time, although still tasty, was very disappointing. I literally counted only 3 pieces of pork in each the sandwiches. The sandwich maker clearly wasn’t interested in giving me my moneys worth hence my disappointment. Unfortunately I will...