Pho 79 — Restaurant in Lakeside

This was the worst experience I’ve ever had at a pho place in my life. The service was so horrendous I wouldn’t recommend it to my worst enemy. We were rushed and told numerous times to hurry up due to them closing @ 9 (We showed up around 7:30 and advised we already knew what we wanted because we eat pho often). After being handed menus my friend stated she actually did need a moment in which our server stated “I thought you knew what you wanted.” After ordering I asked for a side of fish sauce and peanut sauce and my server proceed to tell me “that doesn’t go in pho.” and tried to direct me to order vermicelli and which I declined 3 times and he was explaining to me that pho was a soup and what vermicelli is as if I was a child. I very well know the difference and I explained I wanted the pho he then took my order with an attitude. They then forgot my friend’s shrimp she ordered for her pho and we had to ask an older woman for it in which she just stared with no response. I advised my partner who was also with us that maybe it was just a language barrier but we then saw her speak to another table with no language barrier related issue. The server we had was advising everyone they close at 9 every time he had the chance to speak so it wasn’t just us fortunately but still quite annoying and a huge turnoff. We didn’t even have our food for 10 minutes before we were being asked how we wanted to divide the check and how many takeout containers were needed. The pho was also very watered down I’m assuming to stretch it further so not only was the service bad but the food didn’t even make up for it. Needless to say I will not be...

We came in for lunch around 1:30pm. There were a few people. An old couple was managing the restaurant. The food would be 2.5 out of 5 star. Pho gà has some flavor, it's actually better then the beef pho. I'm Vietnamese so I guess my standard is a bit higher then the average Americans. The beef pho to me is almost flavorless and the meat tendon tasted old. The tables are clean but the place is old and some areas are quite run down. Spring roll is not that good. They used lemongrass chicken for the meat part for spring rolls instead of the usual boiled pork meat, not good. The roll was filled with vermicelli noodles and not much lettuce, 3 sliced pieces of shrimp. The sauce (the make it or break it sauce) for spring roll was not that good. For the fried eggrolls, there is hardly any ground pork meat in there. Just a bit of Woodward mushrooms, glass noodle vermicelli and cabbage. Was not very flavorful. ...

This place was my go to for rice dishes since 2006, unfortunately lately it's gone down hill. They are very slow to refill drinks or water, even when it's not that busy. The food is still decent, sometimes the chicken is a bit " off" in the spring roll. My last visit really did it in, they actually forgot to make my order! The spring rolls came out promptly, then I waited, and waited. Forty five minutes later I still didn't have food, I hawk eyed the new manager, after about ten minutes he realized my food hadn't come out. It turns out it was never made!! Three parties came, ate, and left while I was waiting. The manager did say sorry, it was another fifteen minutes before I received my food. Total time for lunch one hour and forty five minutes. He did give me a free soda. I won't be back, on to another place to...