The Pho Cabin — Restaurant in Los Altos

If you have to eat in downtown Los Altos, and you want Viet/SE Asian style food, but don't want the pungent smell of fish sauce, this is your jam. Everything we had wasn't bad, just very mild, it just didn't have any of the usual fish sauce/smell. Also missing were fresh herbs. Lemongrass pork and prawn vermicelli had zero lemongrass flavor/aroma, no mint leaves, the liquid sauce here was a mild sweet liquid. Mostly vermicelli and romaine, no sprouts, a few strips of watery mushy Daikon and carrots (normally they are pungent pickles). Pork banh mi had a very few of the mild carrot Daikon pickle but nothing else except mayo, no cilantro. So if you don't like the pate, headcheese, fresh herbs, jalapeno, cucumber, and just want pork and bread, this is the place. Pork was pretty oily, orange oil dripping like a folded NYC 🍕. Also the cut they used had a streak of fat, that ate crunchy, if that makes sense. (Obvi this isn't the place to go for gourmet meat quality, I did break out in a rash from the pork. I am sensitive, when pork/chicken isn't fresh, my body knows before my nose!) Chopsticks were some of the best, they are pre-separated so less splinters. During winter, come early, eat fast. Seating inside is limited and cold, as front...

Exceptional restaurant serving authentic and delicious Vietnamese food with fresh ingredients. And if you can tell from my name, I am Vietnamese and I know what I'm talking about. Have tasted and eaten at a lot of Vietnamese restaurants.

The location couldn't be better! Having this in downtown Los Altos is so convenient for me, since I can walk from my office and either eat in or pick up to go.

Let's get into the food! Shrimp papaya salad is soooo good. Every now and then I crave me some papaya salad, and this hits the spot.

Banh mi comes lightly toasted bread with tender beef and side of chips - a favorite!

Beef stew is tender and the broth is rich and flavorful, comes with fresh bread or noodles.

Bun Thit Nuong with perfectly grilled pork and cold noodles with fish sauce dressing.

Beef pho has so much goodness in the broth and the beef is just right for cold weather or anytime really. Especially when the temperature drops and that piping hot bowl of pho is simply divine.

With such a rave review, maybe I was holding off on writing it for so long because I don't want the word to get out. But this restaurant is a gem and I hope it will continue to be around for many...

Came with my partner and we ordered the Large Beef pho and small Chicken pho along with a Vietnamese iced coffee and sat outside since the day was nice. Service was a bit slow, not sure if that is because we were outside or something that they need to figure out since it looks like they had 2 servers but they were both coming outside and serving different tables. Both the chicken and beef were pretty good, flavorful broths with good noodles and the veggies were fresh.

The iced coffee however isn't what I'm used to where they bring a cup out with the sweetened condensed milk and the coffee still dripping. It looks like it was made in a big batch and poured into the glass and wasn't sweet enough. It was hard getting their attention just to order so I didn't bother trying to get them to fix it. Even getting the check was hard to flag them down.

Both pho's we're good though so we'll definitely come back and try some of their...