Green Papaya — Restaurant in Miami Lakes

Green papaya is a Vietnamese restaurant located in the left corner of the plaza under the sign Vietnamese cuisine.

CAUTION: if you have peanut allergy ask beforehand as many of the items on the menu has peanuts.

The restaurant opens at 11:30 and I stopped by about 10 minutes before 12. There was already one customer waiting. I ordered a Bun Cha #17 pork togo. The order took 30 minutes to make. The poor customer who was there before me was waiting over 40 minutes for her food. From the looks of it, most of the staff doesn't trickle in until 12:20. Customers also trickle in at that same time too so it looks like it can get pretty crowded at lunch. The restaurant itself is a very hole in the wall mom and pop shop that comes with very authentic Vietnamese service.

I was in a hurry so I didn't take a look at my food before getting home. The Bun Cha looks and smells authentic enough. However, I wouldn't call it Bun Cha (pork meatball noodles), but Bun Thit Nuong (grilled pork noodles). On closer inspection, they had sprinkled peanuts all over the dish. Thus, I can give a review on taste as I couldn't eat the item (allergy).

Price wise, for $13.85, I personally think the dish was excessively overpriced. I took a look at the other dishes and they are also $2-4 more than what my normal Vietnamese restaurant charges. However, there are no other Vietnamese restaurant in the area, thus they can get away with the price.

TLDR: Authentic vietnamese cuisine, caution if you have a peanut allergy, excessively over priced. If you are dying for Vietnamese food, good choice. Otherwise, there are better places with better...

Would have given it 1 star but the food was okay. However they're extremely expensive for what they offer. They're your typical Japanese take out restaurant, exactly like your local Chinese take out place. For example, they charge $8 for 2 tiny spring rolls which typically cost at the most $2 each, maybe $5 for 2 (& that's being greedy). They have combos (that START at $14 each) that come with soup, salad & white rice. But up charge $8 to replace the white rice with fried rice. Also the "kids meals" cost $8 & it literally brought about 8 fries & 5 nuggets. Mind you McDonald's was at birds eye view so for $8 we certainly expected so much more portion wise then what we got. My daughter was shocked when she saw the small plate (McDonald's portions are bigger & that's for toddlers). I must also strongly insist you check your bill before you pay? Our bill was $113.⁰⁰ for 2 combos, 1 kids meal, 3 shakes (which they charged me $7 each with Boba $21 in total, $6 without boba, even though my husband didn't get Boba) & spring rolls (WOWWW) NOT EVEN PF CHANGS IS THIS EXPENSIVE! & when the owner charged me & gave me my receipt she charged my card $118.⁰⁰ not $113.⁰⁰. When I questioned her on the Boba shakes she said "it's already set in the machine" ¿?¿?¿ huh?¿?¿? So I get robbed even though you made a mistake? & when I asked about the $5 up charge she said "its 113.⁰⁰ if you pay cash". We eat out a lot & this has never happened to us. EVER. Very disappointed at this restaurant. Not coming back here again. Felt like I got robbed...

I've passed this restaurant on several occasions as I would go to eat at other restaurants in this plaza. It always looked like maybe it was closed or empty as you can't see inside. But I love Vietnamese Pho and had been interested to try this place out.

First of all, I was pleasantly surprised with how cute this restaurant is on the inside. It's clean and quaint, but with enough room for dining for even a group of 8 people.

The staff was attentive and I appreciated their unique menu options like crab claws and roasted duck pho. As a fan of crab claws, I had to order them. They came with a sweet and sour sauce and were very tasty. I then ordered the beef pho. Being my first time here, this is the benchmark to judge a Vietnamese restaurant on. The broth was good and it was filled with noodles. Although the beef was tasty, there definitely wasn't enough in the pho and the strips were cut very thin. Almost like roast beef.

I also love Boba milk tea and was greatly disappointed they didn't have this on the menu. Therefore I ordered a taro smoothie instead. The flavor was good but it was an icy smoothie, not a milk tea like I would've preferred. They also charged an extra $1 for the Boba. At $8 I'd prefer to get another appetizer or dessert instead.

Speaking of dessert, you most likely would want to go elsewhere. They mostly only had sticky rice options which didn't seem that...