Phở Lucky - Novi — Restaurant in Novi

First time I've eaten at this place but I read the reviews and it was rated pretty high, a 4.4. someone close to me told me it was pretty good. Now keep in mind I've literally traveled to Vietnam twice just to eat pho and banh mi sandwiches. I've lived in San Diego near Little Saigon and I've eaten Pho all over the world, literally. I am not Vietnamese but I've eaten thousands of bowls of Pho in my life so I know a little bit about Pho now.

With that being said in my opinion the broth was weak and it lacked flavor. It was very simple it just tastes like salt mostly. There was only a little meat in the soup. The noodles were oversoaked or overcooked and they were mush. For my whole table of four. The fresh vegetables that came out which was basil bean sprouts and jalapeno and lime were missing cilantro and culantro which is normal veggies served with pho in Vietnam and most other places in the United states. Overall the pho was very disappointing and I can make it better myself at home and mine's not that good.

Also ordered a caphecsua da or ice coffee and I was disappointed that they brought it out from the back of the kitchen already made. I prefer to see my coffee slowly dripping into a cup of sweetened condensed milk and pour it over the ice myself. So that I can know it's made fresh and not sitting back there pre-made. The caphe sua da that was okay.

The service was okay but every time I had a question or wanted to place an order or ask for a cilantro I had to get the attention of a server and basically get their help. Because they pretty much didn't pay attention to us. They were nice and polite though.

While we were ordering we asked if they had extra large size and they specifically told us they only had regular and large sizes, no extra large. So we all ordered large and one reg. But when we got the receipt they all clearly said extra large and one reg which was very weird.

I hate to seem cliche and say something like "well maybe this is the best you can get in Michigan" but I hope that's not true.

If you try these guys out please write a review or reply to my review and let me know what you think I'd be curious to know if I just caught them on a bad day.

One more thing, I ordered the Pho Dac Biet but they don't like to recognize the name they prefer to use P4 P1 or something like that which I feel is doesn't embrace their culture or it doesn't...

Me: Vietnamese, not so picky about my food because, let's face it, I'm eating Vietnamese food in Novi.

Pho Lucky's Food: D- Had the B2 Vermicelli Bowl which is hard to do bad - You boil some packaged noodles, add meat, an egg/spring roll, some veggies, and top it off with nước chấm (fish sauce). Very simple, and supposed to be very tasty but they screwed it up royally - The egg/spring roll was improperly wrapped which allowed oil to enter and burn insides (very disgusting, see uploaded picture); The noodles, a bit on the soggy side; The meat, overly salted; The fish sauce, the absolute worst part, was made up almost entirely of MSG! I've been eating MSG my whole life with little problem but there was so much in this dish that it gave me a MSG HEADACHE so bad I had to take a sick day and felt woozy for two full days!

Pho Lucky's Service: F I got takeout and as I said, my dish was very simple and merely needed assembly (the meat did not appear to be cooked to order) but it took for-ev-er. When I finally did get my food, the @&#*! girl wearing a Spartan shirt (very professional btw) took my cash without saying a word, turned her head to say something to her coworker, then again without a word, eye contact, or anything, took my change, spun around and threw it into her tip jar while running off to the back. Normally, I would have waited for her to come back but I had been there so long for the food that I was late for a meeting. So, I hope she spent that STOLEN dollar wisely because that'll be the last one they ever...

I would agree with Stella Gibson this place is very understaffed. The pho comes under par. It's nothing like how it used to be a year ago. Not to mention, on the weekend there's nothing that says carry out only after 9:30pm. They shut all the lights off at 9pm and tell customers they're closing. Then they start cleaning and kicking people out who are dining in at 9pm on a Saturday night. The weekdays this place is shutting down by 8pm. By 9pm there's nobody in there. I watched them turn down 10 people in a row on the phone and in person. It was a very busy Saturday night. The waitress's excuse was that she had been there since 10am. If they do that every night that's ten or more thousands of dollars missing a year. The staff did nothing but complain and both the male & female server were rude not only on the phone but also in person. I watched 4 people go to this restaurant next door and take the money this place did not want. I used to come here 2x a week. $30 wkly, $120 monthly & over $1400 a year. Multiply by 10 ppl over $10,000 a year lost in revenue minimum. This place dont care about nor want your money. So, I will not eat or recommend this place anymore. As a matter of fact, I will not recommend any of the restaurants or spend my hard...