Hometown Noodle Restaurant — Restaurant in North Fair Oaks

Hometown Noodle is the best place for delicious Vietnamese food in the Menlo Park/Redwood city area. Don't be fooled by the neighborhood or the exterior which is covered up with pictures of their food. This restaurant has reasonably priced food with traditional flavors, which is hard to find in the Bay Area these days!

Entrees: The beef pho combination and the chicken pho are both solid. The broth is flavorful and they are generous with the meat portions and sides. I love squeezing fresh lime and adding thai-basil and bean sprouts to my broth. I wasn't the biggest fan of the seafood pho -- the broth was lacking in flavor and I don't think the seafood was the freshest. The lemon grass chicken, grilled pork, and lightly cooked beef are spot on in terms of bold flavors. On my most recent visit, I ordered the beef which was so juicy and tender.

If you are craving an appetizer, the shrimp spring rolls and the fried taro rolls are both delicious in their own right. The spring rolls are fresh and light while the taro rolls are bursting with flavor and fried to a light crisp. I've only dined-in and the food usually comes out pretty fast within 5-10 minutes. I always get a thai iced tea or coconut drink with my meal! Servers are friendly but casual.

This is now my go-to pho place and I plan on coming back to try more of their dishes. Parking can be a bit painful in this area so you may need to check out the side streets. Check the curbs around the intersection to see if any 1 hour parking is available.

FYI- If you increase your pho size from L to XL, it seems like they only increase the amount of noodles and not the meats. Also, I believe the minimum credit card charge is around $12-15 dollars so keep this in mind if you need to...

I have been coming to Hometown Noodles for years. It’s a hole in the wall, with good food, okay service up until today.

I got a chicken Pho for dinner on my way home from work, when I got home I started eating, but the chicken tasted funny, I spit it on a napkin, I continued eating thinking it was a piece of chicken fat, the next piece of chicken also tasted funny and that’s when I realized it was spoiled.

I walked back to the restaurant and tried to explain to the woman at the register that the chicken is spoiled. Instead of hearing what I had to say she started screaming “I sold a lot today, I sold a lot today, I sold a lot today”, she proceeds to takes out cash out of the register, hands me $18 and tells me to “get out, GET OUT, GET OUT!”

She didn’t have to be rude, she could have replaced the order, I didn’t feel like cooking and she should have looked into what happened. Instead I left the restaurant without saying anything because I didn’t want other customers dining in to be discourage from eating there.

This place has been around for as long as I can remember, it WAS my go to place for pho, specifically when I’m feeling under the weather. Not the way to be treated as a new or...

The woman running the show walked over wiped the child's butt in the photo then wiped her hand off with the same wet wipe and then proceeded on about her duties. This was the final straw. I've been an occasional customer for 5 years now, service has gone down hill, food quality has always been good. Today the lady who is always there and never leaves was yelling at her employee rudely, talking on speakerphone, stood still speaking to the lady in the photo for a few minutes before getting us waters--mind you we are THE ONLY CUSTOMERS so service shouldn't be an issue, this is when I notice said lady has stripped the baby of its bottoms and touching him and leaving me with a full view of his genitalia, now other lady brings us waters walks back over to baby and wipes his butt. The clincher is that she does NOT WASH HER HANDS!! We got up and walked out. I can't imagine health codes are being followed and I had a hard enough time of my only view being this lady holding said baby in full Monty mode....