Pho Bang — Restaurant in New York

The main issues I have with Pho Bang lies in the staff of the store and the Pho there. Me and my partner went to Pho Bang because of great reviews, both on google and Reddit because we wanted to try something new, our usual place being Pho Best.

As soon as I entered the door, there were no one to direct us to a seat. I had to ask a staff to show me to a seat to which he pushed the work to another staff member. (The store was not busy at the time. Other than us there were only 3 other tables occupied out of 10+. At first, this was an issue I could ignore. However, when I ordered the food, not only did the same staff push the work on the same person, both being elderly, but he also mocked the way I ordered. (I had to repeat my orders a few time because they were having a hard time hearing my through my mask). This is more evident when checking out, with people going to the counter themselves to others getting their bill picked up, I waved at a waiter to ask what to do and, surprise surprise, the same waiter pushed the work to another waiter as they were entering the kitchen. Instead of a waiter, the person who picked up our bill was a man in full black carrying trash to the front, either a cook or a janitor I don’t know. I was packing up and waiting for my change when a waiter told me I needed to go up to the front and get it myself. That was just the customer service. Now to the food.

I mainly go to these stores for Pho, so if there were other food that were better, I didn’t try it. As far as Pho goes, Pho Bang underperformed in my opinion. Not only were the portion size much smaller than Pho best, the soup tasted watery was not nearly hot enough to cook my meat all the way through. That being said, by itself it was not terrible. However, the atmosphere of the store most definitely did not help. I’m not sure if Pho Bang is cutting corners for me, but I’m not seeing any of the 5 star reviews other people see in person.

This isn’t even including how unsanitary the utensils were, which were both out in the open and on the counter with nothing stopping other people from touching or coughing on your spoons. Maybe I’m paranoid, however, the pandemic has gotten a lot of people paranoid.

Overall,

Food, 3/5

Service, 1/5

Environment,...

My husband and I dined in yesterday for lunch. This is our first and last time dining here. I can not believe that this restaurant got a 4.1 rating. This restaurant is a disgrace to Vietnamese food. My husband and I both got the pho soup. The soup was lukewarm. The broth had no flavor. They did not use the correct flat rice noodles. They used the bun rice vermicelli noodle which threw off the flavor completely! Why would they do that? Then we ordered food to go. We wanted to give the other food a try since the pho was horrible. Boy was that a big mistake. I ordered their Vietnamese sandwich, banh hoi thit bo lui, and their seafood noodles. The Vietnamese sandwich was horrible. Their pickled carrots was overpowering, overly sweet and very wet. They also did not use the correct meat for the sandwich. The banh hoi thit bo lui beef was tough and also overly sweet and their seafood noodles was the biggest disappointment. Their sauce tasted like ginger flavored dirty water and the mushrooms in the dish tasted like metal can! Overall we spent $80 in total and that was the biggest waste of money. This establishment should be ashamed of the horrible food that they are producing and their cook needs to be reevaluated. I highly do not recommend this...

I'm sitting in this restaurant for the last time. I really liked the Summer rolls, but they’re not so great that they're worth the way this staff consistently treats me.

This place has been open most, if not all of my life, here on Kissena. My family never came here often at all - once maybe. As an adult, I truly feel unwelcome, despite my history here. I usually call my order ahead - the same, specific order every time. They know me and they know my order. I used to think that if the man at the counter had seen me enough times, his bad attitude towards me would lessen. The benefit of the doubt, right? It has not. The man at the counter is borderline hostile to me. Still.

Today, I had time to kill, so I ate inside. I am seated at the worst table ... it's placed right in front of the bathrooms, and it's stacked with plates and condiments - really occupying table space. There's waiter is watching me intently, but hasn't come around to say anything. It's been 15 minutes of just being watched by him.

The only staff member who has acknowledged me kindly is the waitress (I believe there's only one).

I kept an open mind to this place entirely...