PHO 95 Hai Ky Mi Gia — Restaurant in Lakeside

Long post:

Very unfortunate to have had the experience me and my family had today. I have been here two other times to eat great food and have had no issues. I have eaten at probably every Vietnamese restaurant in RVA and have served at one myself. I was excited to let my two friends from out of town try this place, since it’s fairly new and they serve banh khot (mini Vietnamese pancakes).

It was busy when we arrived and we had a party of 7, so we waited. Surprisingly, we were seated fairly quickly which we were thankful for. After about 20-30minutes, we ordered and the waitress repeated our order correctly back to us (which was much appreciated). After an additional 45 minutes, we still had not received our appetizers or my husband’s ice coffee. Finally, one of the eggrolls come out and spring rolls come out. I ask the waitress if the other order of spring rolls is still coming and the iced coffee and she replies yes as she walks away. A few minutes later she returns with the other spring roll order and the coffee along with another waiter who has served me and my family before. They ask us to be patient as they are very busy and have to go orders. Fair enough. My family and I continue to wait. At this point we’re about an hour and a half in (probably more) and the rest of food comes out. We’re hangry and our patience is thin. The waitress brings out two my dac biet (egg noodle special) which we reply we only ordered one. She replies “No.I even read the order back to you” which we agreed that she read the order back, but we insisted that we did in fact only order one. My other friend (who also speaks Vietnamese) had listened when she read the correct order back to us tried to tell the waitress that we didn’t order two. She leaves the table, clearly upset and tells her staff about “that girl over there said they ordered one”. Her tone was clearly negative and it was clear she was speaking about me (She spoke in Vietnamese and even though the seats were full, we could hear her from the other side of the restaurant). We get the rest of our food. Two of my friends had ordered extra noodles, only one came out so my friend reluctantly asks for his extra noodles. After all the food comes out and we begin eating. My friend and I can hear the staff talking about us in Vietnamese (how we were rushing them, how they don’t need our business, how we were not being understanding and patient etc.) My husband goes to pay and to get our to go order. One of our friends (who is in the food business) confronts the staff about speaking negatively of us. They immediately start denying that they were speaking badly of us. The waitress claims that I was rude including my facial expressions. Yes, I was visibly upset (I am human ya know) but I was never rude. I asked if my husbands coffee and spring rolls were going to be coming out with the other apps, but I was never rude and nasty. We waited patiently, speaking amongst ourselves the whole time and tried to clarify the correct order (when they brought out the wrong stuff or needed missing orders). They basically argued with my friend about how we needed to be patient and understanding and now the whole restaurant probably thinks we’re a bunch of entitled Karen’s who don’t like to wait. Super awkward. Never got our to go order. Got the wrong ticket. Just all in all, a hot mess. Out of all the things that happened, it was the bad mouthing in Vietnamese that upsets us the most. Contrary to what other customers and the staff may think, my friends and I are actually very patient and understanding people. Even if we were not, which I’m sure is what they think, it is inexcusable to speak negatively of your customers. Now I guess I’ll have to find good banh khot somewhere else.

*update- if your “employees best” is talking negatively about customers (in another language or not), you should probably...

The worst part of my experience today was how many times I've been to this restaurant and had great food and good experiences in the last year. Today, I went in and ordered something I just got a couple of days ago, a soft rice noodle dish with vegetables and tofu, they make great tofu here which is hard to find and this dish is awesome when made right. We were there for an hour before we got anything because it was so busy, which is fine, but when we got our food my food was wrong, I was given a noodle soup with seafood in it, and the egg rolls that I ordered vegetarian were regular, with pork. I have a meat allergy and if I had eaten these I would have had an anaphylactic reaction. I had to ask if they were the right ones because the waiter didn't know and the person who made it was the one who said they were regular egg rolls. I couldn't check myself, because again, allergies.... Aside from that, we didn't get our drinks either at all the entire hour we were there. Once they retook our order my food was delivered within like two minutes. Which isn't a comforting sign, not to mention it was made with almost no noodles, even though it was a noodle dish, and the noodles in it were not the same as they were two days ago when I ordered this same dish. Also, this dish costs $19 and the amount of food on my plate was less than half what it was two days ago. When I mentioned this I was met with arguing about how I didn't know what I was talking about and that they always use the noodles they gave me this time and that's always the amount of food they provide for this dish.... I mean I was literally eating this thing two days ago. Why when you've so royally messed up someone's order would you not only throw something together so slap dash but also short them on the amount of food you give and then argue with them about the dish itself when it's just not good quality? I decided not to pay for this and to cancel everything and leave, and when I did this I was met with more arguing and being told the issue was me 'being some kind of way.' Well maybe if you didn't treat me with disrespect after literally putting my life in danger and then giving me a poor quality dish that was basically just a bunch of vegetables, making me wait for an HOUR for everything, and then giving me a major attitude when I questioned you about it there wouldn't have been a problem!? They tried to remake the dish for me prior to leaving, when I was already at the register and super pissed but at that point you just know someone is going to spit in your food, so I declined. I was honestly surprised they had such bad reviews previously but now I really really get...

I come in here often to usually eat and I usually leave a $10 tip for them because the service is pretty nice and the food is as well. I used to be a server so I understand that tips are very important and useful for the business and the staff. I came in here today for dinner by myself to enjoy pho tai n spring rolls. During my time there it was pretty good at the beginning but the guy there that was bussing tables made my experience pretty unwelcoming towards the end. I wanted more water during my meal and he was bluntly ignoring me but filling up other people glasses of water instead of mine. It took me 5 tries to actually get his attention even though he was filling up other people water. It made me feel very unwelcome n frustrated to see. I’m not sure if it was because I was depositing TIP money from an app on my phone to my card n it was giving me difficulties in the beginning. He was beside me while I was doing it so he probably saw but it’s very rude to assume that I did not have any funds to begin with because I would’ve never took myself out to begin with. Not sure if he thought I wasn’t going to but it definitely showed. I didn’t leave a tip at all because of the service. The food was ok, my spring rolls still had shells on the shrimp which wasn’t very tasteful. I’ll probably never go...