Phở Tran88 #2 — Restaurant in New Braunfels

I don't normally like to write a bad review for any establishment. I'd like to give them an opportunity which we did. We ordered the hot and sour soup which was okay was a little sweet to my taste and not enough spice to it but I easily fixed that with some sriracha. We ordered the steamed pot stickers, the Vietnamese crispy egg rolls, and those were all very good. I have no negative response to that. However I also ordered their calamari. I love fried calamari. I think it is so good. I've never had such big thick pieces as I got here. However I have dental issues when things are tough to eat. I have a hard time breaking it down with my teeth and I ate one piece of calamari and I'm like thats tough so I put part of an egg roll to help the crispiness help me tear that up a little better and I thought maybe it was just the one piece. So I tried another piece and again it was so chewy. I decided to mention it to our server and when I mentioned it to our server she said that's the way it is but she'll take it off the bill and I'm just like I think we're done with this conversation. So I'm like okay thank you. I'm not trying to cause a problem. I even whispered it pretty much to her because I didn't want to draw a lot of attention to it. She came back and told me that the chef ate it and said that's how it's supposed to be that they sell a lot of it a lot of people eat it nobody has complained. Everybody really likes it. They have people come in who don't want to pay and they didn't like the taste/temperature/service. Which was not my case. I spent almost $69 for our food even with them taking that off so that wasn't an issue for me. However she said that she'd had the chef taste it the next thing I know. I see the Chef come out of the kitchen and look at me and then the Chef talked to the young boy who was also working in there as a server or a bus person I'm not sure. But I saw him like using his thumb indicating me without pointing me out and the chef just kind of like shrug like you know that was my problem or whatever which is fine maybe it's just me. Maybe it's just chewy to me not to anybody else however that was my issue with it. I haven't had it chewy like that before so I was kind of humiliated a little bit but I went about trying to enjoy our meal. I got a beef Vietnamese bowl my daughter got a stir-fried noodle bowl that had chicken and curry I believe it was called Singapore something. They were okay they weren't something I would probably go back and order from them. My daughter respected the idea that I was trying to be polite and just say you know I'm having an issue with your fried squid instead of making it not everybody else because it could be just my issue and so she asked to speak to the lady the lady came back when she came back my daughter's trying to talk to her and she's talking over my daughter. My daughter pretty much told her your repeat customers are your business. When a customer tells you they're having a problem that's information for you that's not information for the restaurant, the cook, and for you to come back and tell us the chef ate it and said it was fine that is pretty much what we had already discussed. That I couldn't eat it so it just became a humiliating situation and it could be just my problem with the calamari. I get it. I don't have a problem with that. I just have a problem that they made it a big issue over me not paying it when I spent like almost $69 and she wouldn't hear my daughter. She just kept talking over her when my daughter is in customer service and she was just reminding her as a customer service person you're the face of the restaurant how you react to your customers is what makes your business not just the food but how people are treated with respect and I wish she could have heard that and not taken it in a negative manner but just...

Firstly, I really hope this business succeeds. Supporting small business owners is crucial for them and the economy, so I want this place to thrive!

That being said, specifically (and only) the Chinese food was so subpar. Egg drop and hot and sour soup were oily without any flavor or salt. The fried rice may as well have been just white rice, it also had no flavor. We had orange and sesame chicken and it was mostly bland chicken with pretty flavorful sauces on top, but tasted like the sauce was added at the last minute rather than cooked into the meat. The crab Rangoon was fine. Nothing special, just cream cheese and imitation crab deep fried in a wonton wrapper.

The atmosphere was very nice and super cute inside and the service was reasonable.

I will definitely be back to try more Vietnamese cuisine, but a total miss for the...

Service was excellent. The edamame and my pepper steak were good. I enjoyed the content of the Spring roll, but the wrap was a bit too thick and doughy for my taste. The fried rice was bland with no veggies in it at all. Very disappointing. My friend ordered the beef Pho bowl and she said that it did not have enough flavor.

I was raised in the Bay Area and worked as a young adult in San Francisco and the surrounding cities and I'm very particular about my Asian food because I've had the best. So while it may be fine for the majority of the locals, those who know really good Asian food may be left...