Pho Eastern — Restaurant in Malden

Food: 4/5 Service: 3/5

I came in for lunch and was surprised to see how popular it was even though the sign outside said “Grand Opening”. I was sat down right away. I noticed there were several groups of people trying to flag down whichever waiter or waitress walked by (presumably to order as their tables were empty) and were ignored. I watched this go on for nearly 10 minutes, while similarly waiting for my turn to order. I ended up needing to flag down the waiter to put my order in.

I ordered the eye-round soup with Beef Broth and asked if they had Dr. Pepper. He looked at me like he didn’t understand what I said so I pointed it out on the menu (I don’t think he was proficient in English). He nodded his head and walked away. Another 10 minutes go by and my food arrives. The first thing I noticed was that there were meatballs in the soup. Before I could even ask if this was my order (and not another tables), the waiter was already gone. No drink, no silverware and not the right order. I ended up grabbing a silverware set from the empty table next to me.

At this point I was needing to go back to work so I ate the bowl given. It was indeed as good as it looked. The food itself was a 5/5. The meatballs were tender and I found a couple pieces of eye-round underneath the noodles. Added a bit of Hosein Sauce and was delighted with the food. However I never got a drink the whole time I sat down. I flagged down the waiter again midway through the bowl and ask for something to drink. He nodded and briskly walked off. Never to return with my drink. I also never got the check (which I saw other tables get). After I finished my meal I walked to the cashier to get my check and pay.

Overall I think the food was great but the service was lacking. It may be due to recently opening up (again it said Grand Opening outside) but that is no excuse to leave a customer with no drink at all who had to get their own silverware. I was going to give them 3/5 but gave them the benefit of the doubt being a new establishment. I see the potential they have to become a...

Good food and a great gentleman that seemed to do a bit of everything, but overall one of the worst dining experiences ever. New restaurant or not, it’s about executing the basics of customer/table service. Given how busy it was, a wait was to be expected. Once we placed our orders, the food came out in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, at least one person in our party didn’t receive the meal that they expected. When they inquired why our meal was different from the picture in the menu, we were told that the picture doesn’t reflect what was actually available. And there was no attempt by the server to rectify the situation; again good food but that’s a situation where an apology would be appreciated in addition to an effort to get the customer something they actually want/expect to eat. From that point on, we had to watch wait staff prioritize clearing tables instead of tend to our table; our initial server was nowhere to be found. And after finally paying the bill, our credit card and slip to sign were placed on our table with no sort of thanks or appreciation. Even as we passed the host station to leave, no one looked our way or attempted to acknowledge our exiting. So it’s highly unlikely we will ever dine...

I'm giving this review 1 star because I can't rate this place any lower.

While the food here was excellent, the service was absolutely terrible. My husband and I were seated in a back corner and were essentially forgotten about. We sat at our table for around 20 minutes before the hostess who seated us noticed that we hadn't placed our orders yet. She promptly sent a waiter over, who, while very apologetic, never visited our table again. It took another 40 minutes for one of the kitchen staff to bring out our food and cutlery (the waiter never brought any to the table) and after eating, another 15 minutes to flag down someone to pay our bill. We ran out of water half way through the meal and had way too many plates on our small table to eat comfortably because no one cleared our finished plates. The entire time we were there (an hour and a half total), thestaff kept looking over at us, but no one approached us without us having to visibly flag them down.

While I understand that it's a new restaurant and it may take some time to get organized, the service was so poor that it almost felt intentional. With so many good pho places in the area, this one is...