Papaya Renton Landing — Restaurant in Renton

(Updated) My boyfriend and I love coming here. Even before pandemic, we've been coming here after our usual vietnamese restaurant stopped serving Beef Stew which was our favorite. When we found out that Papaya serves Beef Stew, we knew we just had to try this place. They have friendly staff that after coming here at least once a week, they started to remember us and our usual orders.

Here are some of the items from their menu that we've tried so far: -Beef Stew is very delicious! Very flavorful and it's a must try! Love the portion size and you have the option to eat it with noodles or baguette. Either way you have it is delicious. -Salt and Pepper Fried Tofu. It might be a bit salty to other people but we like it. It's not spicy at all so don't let that stop you from trying it. The pepper part is just the seasoning. -Spring Rolls was good. Peanut sauce was delicious i could eat it with rice lol. -Shrimp and pork crispy rolls was good! I love crunch on the outside and the delicious fillings inside. -Vegetarian Fried Egg rolls was good. I wish there's a bit more flavor but it's ok. I love the sauce it comes with that i used a little bit of it on my pho lol. yes. I'm weird like that. -Combo Phó which my boyfriend usually orders with spicy broth and well done meat. We've been to other places where their Phó tasted like watered down soup and it was disgusting but Papaya's Phó broth is delicious and not bland. It has a lot of flavor. We've tried their Shrimp Phó and Meatball Phó as well. -Ginger Chicken Phó. A little bit healthier option since they use chicken broth and ginger slices and i usually order this when I'm feeling a little under the weather. -Crispy Honey Chicken rice plate. Chicken is properly battered and the sauce is a little bit salty for my taste but it was alright. I like to ask for a side of Phó broth whenever i order this. -Steak cubes and fried egg rice plate was good. I love the sauce they use on this. The steak cubes are a little too big and a little too chewy to eat though so i hope they cut the meat down a little. -Shrimp and crab tomato rice noodle soup was okay. They use a crab and shrimp broth and it could use a little bit more flavor. Great portion size though -Garlic Beef Baguette or Bánh Mì was really good. Very flavorful, good portion. It is served with Yam fries that is really good when still warm. -Beef Short rib Phó is not on the menu yet but one of their staff recommended it to us and it was delicious. My boyfriend had it with the spicy broth and let's just say he finished eating before me. lol -Thai tea and buble tea options are delicious too. Not overly sweet and sometimes comes in a cute bottle.

Price is reasonable. Good food. Great location. Great staff. They can get really busy sometimes especially when it's lunch time for Boeing employees nearby but they still give great customer service. I highly recommend!

[update] Just had their Tofu Baguette or Bánh Mì and even that is delicious! I honestly had low expectation because its tofu and it might be bland but i was actually surprised. The sauce they made with the tofu is perfect with it.

Banh Xeo was delicious! Right amount of food! I got full but not too much. Just right. It's kind of messy for me but im probably just not doing it right. But who...

I had a very upsetting experience here today that I hoped to share with the owner. A good friend of mine, who I rarely see, wanted to get together for lunch. We both live 45 minutes or more from the Landing and we settled on Papaya because we love Vietnamese and we also needed patio seating, which is advertised on their website, as my friend can get sick easily so she is trying to be very careful and not be in close contact with people indoors. When we got there, the manager said we could not eat outdoors. He said that there were no seats at the tables and it wasn’t open. I pointed out that on the website it didn’t specify that there wasn’t currently outdoor seating. I explained that we had both driven a long way and that my friend is vegetarian and because of health concerns she needs to dine outside. I asked if we could use two of the many chairs inside to sit outside. He very firmly said no and said he would not allow his servers to go out there in the cold weather. It was 64 degrees and other patios were open. He said, you can order take out and sit on the bench over there. I told him we were really looking forward to eating there and would be there for a while talking and catching up and we didn’t want to sit and eat our food out of a bag on a bench. Then he said, well then you can go to sushi over there. We didn’t want sushi. We planned the afternoon very carefully to have Vietnamese food at the Landing with outdoor seating. Not only was he not accommodating, but he treated me very rudely in what he said and how he said it and he was unapologetic about everything. I have never been treated like that at a restaurant before, especially by a manager, which he stated he was. I told him my friend wears a mask everywhere right now because there had been an uprise in covid and she has concerns about her health. Then he said very loudly, “oh now you are saying your friend has covid, well then you shouldn’t be eating here anyway.” It was awful. I actually feel somewhat traumatized from the experience. I never take the time to write these kinds of things. It has to be a really bad experience or a really good one for me to reach out and tell someone. I wish it had been a good one. We ended up wandering around until we found another place that had something vegetarian and had patio seating. The website states that Papaya is welcoming and friendly, but it was neither. I will not consider eating here again and I hope my review is helpful to someone about to make...

Papaya is the best pho place I've been to to date. The location is very clean and nice, and both the indoor and outdoor seating looked great. We were seated straight away, but it took a moment for them to collect our order. Once we placed it, the food came quickly and all at the same time.

We ordered the chicken pot stickers as an appetizer, which were cooked to perfection and given a great crisp. The interior was a little stuck together, which made it difficult to eat with the shell, but still great. The homemade sweet and sour sauce served with it was pretty good, but I preferred the bottled Housin sauce that they offer on the table.

Everyone got the classic beef pho, which had plenty of beef, noodles, and vegetables in a large bowl. The beef was thin, tender, and very tasty. The noodles were a great way to make the dish feel hearty and were accented beautifully by the crisp green onion, pepper, onion, and fresh lime. The broth was warm and flavorful and great to sip after a big meal and full stomach. No extra seasoning or sauces needed!

The crispy honey chicken rice made for some very sweet and sticky crispy bites with a little hint of heat to it. I wished I could've gotten it with fried rice instead of jasmine, but the extra $5 upcharge did not seem worth it to me. Either way, the dish as a whole was great to share and complimented the pho well.

I also tried a milk tea for the first time, and was very pleased by the sugary sweet mango milk tea I had. It tasted like a melted hi-chew, and they even let me keep the cup from it!

Service as a whole was very friendly, but it was tough to know exactly who was our waiter because we had about 5 different employees help us without introducing themselves. They also didn't visit our table much for water refills after they had brought out all the dishes, even though the restaurant was pretty empty.

TLDR; Papaya is a very great place to go if you're hungry or want a nice warm soup and...