A Saigon Cafe — Restaurant in Maui

This spot pretty much got Maui on it's Vietnamese cuisine rampage. Plain and simply put, the food is super tasty.

ATMOSPHERE: The place got a major renovation done in 2013, and much needed it was. Gone are the ripped & duck taped booth seats, as well as that open-air private dining room. Everything inside is brand new, along with outdoor seating, and a cool bar that serves both environments. Unfortunately, the menus have seen better days.

FOOD: Green Beans - Super crunchy and sautéed in a brown sauce with mushrooms, onions, and carrots. Really good side dish to any meal.

Bok Choy - Blanched then drizzled in a mild sweet/salty sauce.

Vietnamese Steak - Chunks of savory broiled steak over a bed of lettuce with tomatoes and cucumber slices.

Green Papaya Salad - The papaya is cut into paper thin strips and tossed in a slightly sweet and tangy sauce with a strong basil flavor. Comes topped with either tofu crumbles or shrimp. Very refreshing starter.

Sautéed Shrimp - If you love shrimp, you have to try this. Deep fried and battered shrimp with an onion-based stir-fry on top. Get it with the shell on or off, I like the latter, and your choice of spice. The flavor is mild but the batter mixed with the toppings has an excellent marriage of flavor.

Clay Pot with Chicken - This has been my favorite dish since the beginning. Jasmine rice, frozen peas, chicken, carrots, fresh white & shiitake mushrooms, steamed in a sweet & salty sauce in a searing hot clay pot. The rice at the bottom of the pot is super crispy, so mix the contents as soon as the dish comes to you.

Beef with Garlic & Egg - Chunks of super tender steak and onions are sautéed in a tasty brown sauce, topped with sliced hard boiled eggs and an onion/garlic stir fry mixture. Delish!

Steamed Fish - It's a whole steamed fish (head and all) with a mixture of veggies done in a soy-based sauce and poured on top. This is a big portion so it's great for family style dining.

Crispy Egg Noodle - The traditional deep-fried egg noodles topped with mounds of veggies sautéed in a dark brown gravy, and meat of your choice (we got chicken.) Loads of flavor and big enough for four to share.

Saigon Egg Noodle Soup - Highly recommended dish for the ramen fan. It's not strong in sodium like your usual ramen and has a nice, lighter, savory flavor with thin noodles, fresh chicken strips, and green onions.

Pork Chops - Wow! I've found my new favorite entree. Chunks of super tender pork done in a dry rub that is so tasty and flavorful, you'll wish you could mimic this at home. Highly recommended!

Vietnamese Beef Burrito - Dried and super thin shells made of rice, I believe, are brought to your table which you dip into a bowl of hot water to soften them. You then add the already cooked beef, bean sprouts, and lettuce. Similar to a spring roll. The dipping sauce is a tangy concoction.

Chicken Vegetable - Chicken strips sautéed in a savory brown gravy with broccoli, onions, mushrooms, and green beans. Good but no wow factor.

Noodle Soup Special - This is a Vietnamese ramen. The broth is clear, lightly salted with a minuscule hint of sweet, but not in a gross way. You have the option of rice or flour (the one I chose) noodles. Toppings are fresh shredded chicken, green onions, dehydrated onions, 2 fresh shrimp, and rubbery calamari strips which I picked out because I hate them in soups. Thankfully there was zero cilantro in this dish. Highly recommended for the ramen fan!

SERVICE: The servers are all friendly and quick. There's one infamous gentlemen in particular who comes off as a pushy salesman but he really means well. If you don't want something he's trying to up-sell you, just say so; you won't be punished for it.

OVERALL: Great Vietnamese food. Prices have gone up a lot within the past year, along with every other...

My reviews are honest and blunt. If there is a great experience or amazing food to share, I am the person who's going to share that. We eat at A Saigon Cafe 2 1/2 weeks ago when we were in Maui. Wow I had been wanting Pho for a long time and stopping to eat here was the perfect choice and then some. I have eaten very authentic pho at some amazing places here in Dallas/Fort Worth Texas, but A Saigon Cafe was at the top of the best Pho I have ever had. Let's start off with the broth. The broth is what sets the stage for any good Pho and Saigon has the best broth I have tasted in any Pho bowel I have ever had. Smooth and the aroma of the broth was amazing. I ordered a large bowel with meat balls and rare thin steak I could not get enough of it. We also order the chicken fried rice and steamed rice which my wife and daughters loved. The portion size of the chicken fried rice was good however, when we ordered the white steamed rice the portion sizes on that was little, small. Nevertheless, if Saigon had a location in the DFW area I would make it a point to eat there often. What a find this was. We were 2 hours away from having to go to the airport to get on our 5-hour flight back to Dallas/Fort Worth and we had a great amazing lunch on our last day because of we found A Saigon Cafe. Great food guys, we will be back in Maui soon and A Saigon Cafe will be our first stop once...

I live in Maui and went to the restaurant with my girlfriend on the advice of her mother who eats there periodically.

The waiters have a schtick where they joke around with you and pretend to take your cell phone or whatever you have on the table, for example. That part is fun.

The waiter let us review the menu and asked us if we wanted the daily special, which was a whole fried fish and wing beans. Assuming that it would be in line with the menu prices, we agreed to split the lunch. The waiter asked us if we wanted a drink and since my girlfriend is a young looking 21, he made sure to let us know that they do not card, directly and overtly.

We ate our meal, which was all right, but not great. Wing beans are nice to find on a menu anywhere. The fish was almost but not quite overcooked and overly reliant on oyster sauce, which to me is a sign of a lazy cook

Then the bill came. $75 for one fish, one side of wingbeans and two long island iced teas!! Holy mackeral! I'm sorry, but it was not even worth close to that much. Spagos it is not. I was seriously tempted to dine and dash for the first time in my life.

Make up your own mind. If you can take a dirty restaurant with filthy bathrooms and kitchen, humorously sarcastic wait staff, weak drinks and the potential to be treated like a tourist in Tijuana.... then you have come to the...