Pho T & N — Restaurant in Poulsbo

Overall 4.5 star. Authentic tasting. Excellent service.

I’ve lived in SoCal for 29 years, so I am spoiled with the best Vietnamese food growing up. I moved up to WA a couple years ago and have found the Vietnamese cuisine up here VERY disappointing (as expected. I travel OR/WA for work so I get to try a variety of Vietnamese offerings.

With that said, this place is better than 90% of the pho restaurants in WA. Here is the break down of what I ordered:

Pho bo vien (meat balls) -good size. It’s about a medium size bowl. No xe lua size offered (or was offered). -the broth is the most important part. Their broth was good (better than most places) but slightly lacked the richness of a traditional pho broth. This is not to say it was bad. In fact it’s very good. The only other place I would recommend that has a richer broth would be green leaf in Seattle (imo the best pho in WA). -the meatballs. Very good. Coming from SoCal, you would think it would be hard to screw this up. I’ve found that most places up here do not use quality meat balls (bo vien). They’re usually too soft or the consistency is not right. T&N is not one of them. Their meat balls are excellent. They have the correct texture, consistency and flavor. The only thing I would like is to have the meatballs cut in half of thirds. Instead, my meatballs were thinly cut. -veggies were fresh. Bean sprouts, basil leaves (very good quality) and peppers were all fresh.

Fried egg rolls (cha gio) -very well visually prepared. The dipping fish sauce is DEAD SPOT ON authentic. This is a BIG bonus. This may be too authentic for white folks who have not acquired to taste for fish sauce.

Spring rolls -traditional style spring rolls. Like the ones I grew up with. I was most blown away by the dipping sauce. It taste exactly like the dipping sauce I use to eat growing up. This is the ONLY place in wa I have found with this sauce (that does it right).

Few other notable mentions: -service was great. My server was THEO and he is a A++ server. Very attentive. Very polite. I can appreciate this since I worked/managed the food&beverage industry for 15 years.

Final thoughts: Would I recommend this place? YES. Will I return? YES. Better pho place than 90% of pho...

I'm a very generous, patient, and forgiving person. I love pho, I came into the restaurant. Waited, and I was seated. I sat for over 25 minutes waiting and waiting. All of the waiters and including what looked to be the restaurant manager were just staring at me. Looking at me as if I were invisible and wasn't even there. The restaurant manager came over to the table directly across from me to attend to the people sitting at that table, as he finished I interrupted him and told him that I haven't been served, no questions, no water, no acknowledgment. He then just asked me what I wanted to eat and that he will get me water. I told him what I wanted and waited patiently. The food arrived and it was so delicious! However, I was never given any water still. I had many waiters and the manager walk by multiple times. I was never once again acknowledged. An older aged couple sat down on a table next to me, and they rushed to service them. Giving them a break to think about what they wanted to order and then manager came to them to take their order saying sorry for the wait and that they weren't forgotten about. Apparently that standard doesn't apply to all customers. When you dine out for food, you're paying for the experience not the food. Like I said the food was delicious! The service was terrible. I had to get up and ask for someone to take my check so that I could be excused and I had never gotten any water. I was under the impression that a place with reviews this high would have a better...

My parents and I came in to dine here after a long drive, as we are from out of state. The place was almost empty, except for a small group of guys that sat in the middle of the restaurant. Other than that, the place was pretty empty. We were tired, so we didn't noticed the "please wait to be seated" sign as we entered (also the sign was angled away from the front door, something I had noticed on the way out).

Anyway, after my parents and I sat down, the waitress came over and asked "um, are you guys eating in?" I was a little confused because we sat down, so I would think it was pretty obvious that we are. So I said yes. Then she said, in a loud tone, "okay, well next time please wait to be seated so that we can make sure we have enough tables for everyone." I noticed the guys at the middle table looked over at us, and we were quite uncomfortable and humiliated with how the waitress approach the matter.

We would have understand if she told us that the table was already reserved, or that there's actually a wait. OR, if the restaurant was already packed and we had cut someone in line, then I understand her need to tell us that. However, the restaurant had only one other group besides us, so I didn't think it was necessary for her to reprimand us like children.

So we walked out of there and went to a different pho place. The funny thing is that this other pho place had a "please wait to be seated sign" also, and they were pretty empty, but as we waited the owner told us to just come in and...