Pho Pensacola — Restaurant in Pensacola

I'm not really sure where to start with how unpleasant eating here was. As soon as we came in, the owners(I guess) who were also the wait staff were sitting around a table joking in the dining area. That's pretty unprofessional to start with but I could get over that.

We ordered some pho, rangoons, a crawfish poboy, and spicy ahi sushi, and it came with the smallest egg roll I have ever seen in my life. The pho had what smelled a lot like rancid meat in it. The Rangoons were not Rangoons, they were folded over tortillas with cream cheese in them, very few of them. $8~ for that is robbery. The spicy ahi sushi was totally plain and was the least-bad thing we got, but there was nothing spicy about it so I'm not even sure what that was. The poboy was as dry and cold and seasoned as gravel with very few, hard, cold crawfish, lettuce, tomato and pickle and no sauce or seasoning of any kind. The fries were soggy but not terrible. The bread was pretty sad too. This restaurant is not particularly expensive, but it's not cheap. The quality is simply way, way too low.

This is not even the worst part though.

The waiter, a middle aged white guy, who I guess is a co-owner of the restaurant or something, didn't really seem to have any social awareness or understanding of boundaries at all. He would relentlessly hound our table, making highly inappropriate comments and ramble endlessly/incoherently about his life to us, unprompted, in the otherwise empty restaurant. He would repeatedly make inane, really out of place jokes with us like we were friends, pat our backs/shoulders repeatedly(touching a stranger is a hardcore no-no). At one point he made a bizarre joke all by himself about sitting at our table and to my shock and annoyance he DID, sitting extremely close to us, so close that he was touching the person I was sitting with. This was deserving of a shove at this point but it was too shocking and strange to react.

When we ordered water and only I wanted lemon, he asked my brother why he didn't want lemon (?!) And then told him that if he wanted he could stick his finger in the cup to make it sweeter.

He asked me what our relationship was, and I said we are brothers. He said "you don't look like brothers" and made an incredulous face.

He asked me where I am from(not the US). When I told him, he told me the government there is bad. Then he said it didn't seem like I was from there, because my English doesn't sound bad. This is atrociously disrespectful.

Later he came to our table just to tell me that I should drink my brothers drink and spit backwash in it and then let him drink it because the protein will help him. What in the flying holy hell is that?

Between the terrible food and the grotesquely creepy and unprofessional staff, I can't imagine how people this disconnected from reality are still in business. I felt unsafe here. Go...

This was one of the worst experiences I've had at a restaraunt in Pensacola. I came here with my boyfriend last night for dinner hoping for a good experience based on other reviews and the pictures posted of the food. It. Was. Awful. As soon as we went to sit down, the booth was dirty on the side of the table I chose and I had to grab a napkin and wipe the food off before sitting. The server who sat us said absolutely nothing about it and didnt offer to wipe anything down. Then we took some time to look over the menu and order drinks. The Dr. Pepper I ordered was watery so our server explained they must have been having issues with the machine. She brought me a Coke instead and that was fine. Someone else that worked came by our table and asked if we still needed our menus even though we hadn't ordered yet. I tried to explain this but she took the menus anyway and walked away. Eventually our server came back and I had to pull the menu up on my phone to tell her what I wanted, as it was our first time there, which was a little annoying but I mean, small inconvenience. Not a huge deal. We ordered and waited. Then my boyfriend's food was brought to the table 15 minutes before my food was. No explanation as to why or apologies. Just awkward glances from our server because I was still waiting but she didn't come to the table until I finally had my food and my boyfriend was out of water. The restaraunt filled quickly after we got there with about 3 more tables. I understood the slower service because she was the only one waiting tables but with two other people bringing out food, it wasn't very organized. My boyfriend said the chicken fried rice he ordered was good and seemed happy with it. My food, however, was just okay. I ordered the Seafood Lover's boil. The shrimp was heavily overcooked and the sand vein in the shrimp hadn't been taken out (if you don't know what that is, Google it.) The piece of corn I got had zero corn taste to it and the crab wasn't fresh. I asked for a combination of garlic, cajun, and lemon pepper seasoning for the boil sauce and it was too sweet. I left half of my shrimp in the bowl used to discard shells and the boil plate. The icing on the cake was that despite my boyfriend claiming he liked his food, he ended up throwing up at 2:30 this morning. So pretty much we paid almost $80 for bad service and overpriced food poisoning. Best thing about the experience was the crab rangoons. Those were pretty good. 10/10 do...

This is an honest opinion and although we had a great experience today - I would not recommend or be back to this place.

One the worst things I saw was one of the wait staff cleaning the bus tubs of dishes and pouring remains into a trash bag then handle food right after. This kind of set the rest of the time for the visit

Food: we had a party of 4 and we all order Pho of some sort and some spring roll and crab Rangoon appetizers. the pho was ok. I gave it 3 of 5 stars. I’d much rather eat at Bien Den Dong, Saigon Market or my favorite - Golden Palace. the appetizers were ok. The spring rolls were fresh and tasty and although the crab Rangoon seemed a bit watery - they tasted great and the technique was pretty!

Service - we had several different servers so I’m not sure who my main server was. However of the three that checked on us I would say the guy with one earring - I called him Asian George Micheal was definitely waking every one up as he go go’d because he was yelling Vietnamese at different times and I thought it was unprofessional. Oh well at least he didn’t mess with garbage then handle food. But he was the downer of the service trio.

Atmosphere - the vibe was ok if you can overlook the 4 or 5 portable ac’s they had trying to cool the place down. Not only did you have to contend with that noise the tv was blaring some YouTube playlist of Vietnam street vendors which was culturally interesting. Other than that I didn’t feel comfortable because I felt dirty and I didn’t even think about visiting the bathroom. Obviously this is a rebranded restaurant but the least they could have done was masked the portable ac’s and perhaps cleaned and repainted the dining room and ceiling. It just felt ick! I hope I don’t get sick today. I would venture a good food inspection is warranted.

Lastly clean up the hood vents! I mean there’s grease poor if out the hood vents and running down the shingled roof. One spark and that place is toast. Insurance liability much? Perhaps Asians don’t believe in that!

It wasn’t a horrible visit but it wasn’t great and I won’t be back and I won’t be recommending anyone I meet. Just do your own recon. We enjoy being foodies and especially of Asian cuisine. We know how it should taste and we know how restaurants should look and feel. We just rather not be food establishment owners - a little pride would be helpful…..maybe...