Mẹ Và Con Vietnamese Kitchen — Restaurant in Oakland

Me Va Con, meaning ‘mother and child’ in Vietnamese, offers traditional yet modern Viet Fusion cuisine. The building that it’s in used to be home to one of my go-to Korean restaurants while I was in college so I was very eager to see what took its place.

There is a small private parking lot attached to the building which is great! As you walk towards the entrance, you’ll pass by their shaded large patio seating area. The indoor portion of the restaurant is bright, welcoming, and very clean. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was a big sign on the counter that reads: “We are not a fast food restaurant. Your food is made fresh every order. Please be patient.” Not only did the sign catch my attention, but it made me even more excited because I knew I would be getting a hot ‘home cooked’ meal.

The menu offers a fun variety of starters, viet street food, noodle soup, entrees, sides, & they have a dinner specials menu! I was very intrigued by the sound of the Tom Yum Pasta, but I was here on a mission— to get a big bowl of pho.

We ordered the Spicy Shaken Beef Pho at the spiciest level ($22), Banh Khot (Mini Crispy Shrimp Pancakes, dine-in only, $24), Xoi Man with Pork (Sticky Rice with house sauce & pork, sausage, + quail egg), and an Egg Coffee ($8). The food only took about 15 minutes to start coming out, the coffee came out within 5 minutes.

The coffee was very dark, aromatic, and had a perfect amount of bitter to it. The egg foam was delicate, not too sweet, and has made it onto my ‘East Bay Coffee Heads’ collection on Yelp. I will definitely be visiting regularly just to grab coffee. The sticky rice came out next. The presentation was fun & casual. The rice was laying on a pool of their sweet and savory house sauce & covered in a mountain of tender grilled pork. This dish could definitely have been a meal on its own.

The spicy shaken beef pho came out and it was piping hot! It came with a more than generous serving of rice noodles and lots of thinly sliced beef. The broth itself was rich, deep in flavor, and not too fatty or greasy. At the spice level that I requested, I was hoping for more heat, but they do give you a container of their house made chili sauce that really packs a punch so I added a bit into my soup after tasting it. I can’t wait to try their other noodle dishes.

The Banh Khot, or mini pancakes with shrimp, were served in a very cute cast iron on top of a woven bamboo coaster/basket. It was also served with a platter layered with butter lettuce, mint, and purple shiso leaves, and of course, a small bowl of nuoc chaom (Viet dipping sauce). Each bite was so light, crispy, and refreshing! I really appreciated how the lettuce/shiso were presented. It made it much easier to prepare each wrap & it was so aesthetic.

There was one hiccup that the staff fixed with grace. We had only ordered one bowl of the spicy shaken beef pho, but we were served two bowls. We let them know that we’d be okay with keeping/paying for the second bowl since it was already made. They still gave 20% off of our bill for the mistake. The staff is so kind & really wants to make sure you enjoy your meal.

I cannot wait to dine here again soon! Definitely going to try the Ube...

Not enough meat! We had the grilled BEEF (Where's the beef?) Vietnamese sandwiches / banh mi, with hardly any meat on them, and boba smoothies, that were small but good. They have a giant picture sign in their parking lot that shows a sandwich overflowing with meat and vegetable ingredients but that wasn't the case in reality. Not only was there hardly any meat but they didn't even try to overflow it with extra vegetable toppings like sliced carrots, daikon or peppers to cover up the lack of meat. The few pieces of meat in the sandwich did actually taste good and the sandwich bread was good too. But when you buy a beef sandwich you expect more meat inside than the sandwiches we got. Maybe it was just a bad or inexperienced cook, we will try it one more time and report back with an edit of this review if they have improved this lack of meat problem. (People return repeatedlyir to restaurants for the good food if those restaurants skimp on their food customers won't return, even if everything else in the restaurant is perfect.) The server did a good job and was polite so I do not blame her. The interior seating area of the restaurant seemed clean but I did notice people talking and laughing at other tables seemed very loud and I think it was because most of the walls are bare and there's nothing on the floor to absorb the sound. But that is very minor compared to ordering something with meat and getting only a few pieces. It's just something to be aware if you notice it's crowded, know it's not going to be quiet inside. I actually want this restaurant to succeed so maybe people eating there should just get the pho or try something else until their sandwiches meat servings improve. They do have a large parking lot if you're looking for lots of off street parking. I do hope they can solve this issue and I can return to edit this review with...

So…. I was on a roll for a straight week purchasing the Vietnamese pork sandwich from this restaurant! I was so pleased with myself that I had found a place (on DoorDash as well) that had a delicious sandwich that encompassed all the right ingredients for a traditional Vietnamese Sandwich (that I’m used to:) fresh bread, pate’, (all of the vegetables, and greens, peppers etc) and of course your chosen protein. Anyway…. Then I ordered the sandwich on the 7th day and low and behold I received a sandwich delivered to my home with “just vegetables” in it!

I contacted DoorDash and sent them a picture and waited a few days and decided that I wanted to speak with the manager and/or owner of the establishment to express my disappointment with what I received!

To my dismay I was met with a very nasty manager! She was snarky, condescending, and wouldn’t allow for any engagement (discussion) around what my dining experience had been! I told her “I didn’t want anything in return” that DoorDash had already taken care of the matter; but that I didn’t want to simply leave a bad review, but wanted to speak with the powers that be so they could hear it first hand!” WOW!….. she told me “you can post a bad review on DoorDash or anywhere else if you want to!” I just said “OK” and hung up! So much for ordering from them again! Sometimes the customer just wants you to see and hear their concerns, and to be...