Pho Bac Hoa Viet — Restaurant in Rancho Cordova

I've been frequenting Pho Bac Hoa Viet since 2010, but my last visit has caused me pause for visiting in the near future as they do not seem to take food allergies seriously.

This is a cautionary tale for those with peanut allergies. I went earlier this week and ordered a bun thit nuong (pork noodle bowl salad for the non-viet community), no peanuts as I have an allergy. The sever must have forgotten to put the in the order without peanuts - which I do not fault them for as accidents happens. Where I take issue however is how the rest of the staff handled the situation from there. Again, I do not have any grievances with the sever who took our order, only the rest of the staff who were involved/kitchen.

I notified the staff member who brought my food that I ordered no peanuts on the dish as I have an allergy. Important to note - I had taken off 1 of the 2 egg rolls from the bowl before I noticed it had peanuts in it. Sever brings back out the dish, sans peanuts. I start mix the food around and pulled 1 of the three shrimps off the skewer before noticing there was an egg roll missing, which seems suspicious if this were to be a new bowl of food. Upon inspecting the bowl more closely, the staff had only scooped off the peanuts and brought back the same bowl. I could visually see leftover pieces of peanuts. As the staff seemed pretty busy, I took the dish and walked directly up to the counter and asked them if they could fully remake it as I have a peanut allergy and could not eat this one as they merely scooped off the peanuts instead of providing me a fresh one. The woman at the cash register looked slightly annoyed with my request, but said sure and took the dish back. Very shortly, another sever brings out a new bowl. This time I decided to inspect it before even touching it. Immediately I noticed they placed the same shrimp skewer with only 2 left back in the bowl, which meant they took it from the peanut infected bowl and placed it on top of the fresh one. They also had left off the egg roll. While I understand times are tough and not wanting to waste inventory - this was not how the staff should have handled the situation once I stated I had an allergy. Had I eaten any of the food they had given me, it could've had serious medical ramifications.

So please, if you have any type of food allergy, be mindful of what they bring you and double check for allergens, even if they've stated...

We're out of state so since this Pho place had a 4.3 Stars rating, we thought we'd try it out. It seems to be a very whitewashed version of a Vietnamese restaurant to me. It gives off kind of an Applebee's kind of vibe, with toned down and bland Asian foods. We ate here on a Sunday afternoon, Dec 2021.. It was kind of busy. There was like 80% Non-Asian people eating here. When we arrived, we signed in on a waitlist to Dine-in for a group of 4. When we sat down and received our waters my Sister has a baby cockroach in her water, which I laughed and told the waitress immediately. She quickly poured it out and got her a new one so I didn't get to take a picture in time for this review. Lol Anyways, we order three Pho #1's, and one beef Vermicelli, without the bean paste. The eggrolls in the Vermicelli has Mushrooms, which I thought was interesting because it tasted good/okay. The Pho broths was kind of bland, and you can tell this wasn't an authentic Vietnamese/Asian restaurant because they didn't have Asian Fish Sauce. Lol The beef in my Vermicelli was soooo tough, I was only able to chew and swallow 1 and a half out of the three that they gave me in my bowl; see pictures attached. The beef in the Phos were also VERY tough and chewy. The Honey Dew Boba drink I received was also very powdery and not very well mixed. My sister got the 3-Colored Sweet drink, and it's basically a shaved ice Nam Vam. She didn't really like it because it wasn't really a "Drink" but more of a shaved cup of ice with Nam Vam at the bottom, with weird pieces of tasteless coconut shavings? That's how she described it. Anyways, I know a lot of white folks have a very white and bland taste palate, so this place is definitely not bad, for them. So, if you're not Asian and looking for an Americanized toned-down Asian kind of food place, this is definitely the place you should try. 3/5 stars because the customer service was okay, without tremendously amazing food. The bathroom looked decent but smelled like a kid accidentally peed on the floor; I can disregard this because I have a kid so this doesn't bother me but might bother other people. But they can definitely put an air freshener in the tiny women's bathroom. Not my favorite Pho place but...

Upon entering the restaurant I saw a cute outdoor patio and many pretty plants and flowers. There is a really cool dragon painted on the wall behind the bar and the decor is jovial and vibrant. There were many other tables eating. So I had confidence that my dad's recommendation for lunch was going to be good. Between the three of us we split an order of war wonton soup, broccoli beef, pork chow mein and, pork spring rolls. The server was pleasant and tentative. About five minutes later out came the streaming broccoli beef. Almost five more minutes after that the soup arrived. Then the chow mein and finally the spring rolls.

As someone who has worked in restaurants for 28 yrs I was surprised that all of the food came out at different times. I figured the soup might come first but, perhaps there is a cultural difference with that part of the meal. My next detail I'm going to nitpick would be the lack of a place setting. We were a party of 3 and I don't know why she only brought enough plates and cutlery for 2. Anyway..not that big of a deal. THEN..this is where it got interesting...as my dad was eating his chow mein he bit into a piece of metal. A long twisted piece of aluminum which we would later fine out came off of a basket used to fry food, was in our lunch. When we informed our server she did not seem alarmed. She went to the kitchen. She returned with lackadaisical energy and we were told to "Be careful, the kitchen said it was off of a basket used to fry foods". SAY WHAT? What kind of cheap baskets were they using that could fall apart like that and, how did that go unnoticed and land in our lunch? Our server was about to leave and I had to ask "I'm sorry did you just say to be careful?" She replies with a "yes the kitchen blah..blah..blah". I then reiterated one last time.."Be careful?! That is all you are going to say about it? We found metal in our food". Finally, after having to sound like I meant business, she FINALLY offered to take the cost of the dish off the bill. Wow! You know.. the food was descent but the server's proficiency could be questioned and the fact that she rolled her eyes at us when we left...