Saigon 512 — Restaurant in Round Rock

This restaurant does not serve actual authentic Vietnamese dishes despite its name. We came on an afternoon Wednesday and had lots of disappointment.

Food: We ordered Phở with tai, gau, and bo vien ($15) and Bun thịt nướng chả giò ($13). For preface, my family and I are from Vietnam, so we know what real and authentic Viet foods taste like. I will tell you that these dishes are not authentic.

For the pho, the broth was cloudy (i sent a photo of the pho to a friend who is not fully Viet, and the first thing my friend pointed out was the cloudy broth). This is due to unskilled cooking. The meats were kind of smelly, not prepared properly.

The bun thit nuong was the biggest disappointment. The rice noodles were dry and rubbery instead of being moist and dense. Might be because they pre-boiled the noodles and left them in the fridge, only taking them out when someone orders them. The meats, to be frank, so bad. Bun thit nuong literally means grilled meat with rice noodles. The meats in this dish WERE NOT GRILLED (owner confirmed this). The meats were literally braised and caramelized to give the effect that they were grilled (THEY WEREN’T). Also you can tell this because after mixing up the meats and the noodles with fish sauce, the noodles literally turned brown. The meats didn’t even taste good (like i had to force myself to eat them). Back to fake grilled meat, you’re telling customers it’s grilled meat while it’s not?? isn’t this scamming and deceiving lol. Also, popular Vietnamese restaurants that serve bun thit nuong and grilled meat still grill their meats. Like they get massive number of customers per day and still grill their meat properly. Grilling meat doesn’t take that long???

Service was meh. I was kind of confused when I went inside the restaurant because the place was so empty (only 1 other customer there). Atmosphere was meh.

Anyway, I wouldn’t come back and wouldn’t recommend a...

We drove 30 min out to try this restaurant and unfortunately it was not worth the drive and we would not come back.

We are able to communicate in Vietnamese so language was not a barrier, but when we asked which dish is popular (their menu is quite large), our waitress simply told us that “people order everything” and appeared cold.

The food is very average, but considering Austin’s lack of Vietnamese food, it’s not terrible if you have a viet food craving and you live nearby.

The banh cuon was very average. The rice wrap was a bit thick and the sautéed pork was a bit bland. It is odd that spoons are not provided for the nuoc mam; we had to grab our own to avoid nuoc mam spilling everywhere.

We ordered the small banh xeo but were given the banh khot instead. When we addressed we error, the waitress was more concerned about figuring out who made this error instead of fixing it and providing decent customer service. It felt a bit like a toxic work environment from the perspective of the customer. Additionally, when our check came in they charged us for all 3 orders when we only ordered 2. The waitress seemed fussed and rude when we pointed this out.

Although the small banh xeo wasn’t bad, it is just not worth returning even though we would’ve liked to try other dishes due to the disorganization and customer service we received. I’d definitely rather cook at home or make a drive out to Houston than do this 30 min drive again to...

Found this pho location while searching for a new place to try. Since the weather was a bit cold today, we made today a "Pho-day" 😅. We arrived to the restaurant after 12pm and the place was packed. There were people at the door waiting to be seated but did not see anyone from the restaurant taking names. However, things eventually work out and we found ourselves been seated in a booth with a good view. Unlike other pho restaurants that lists phos with different types of meats, Saigon 512 provides Pho and allows customer to select up to 3 types of meats. When the phos arrived, to my surprise, the broth looked visibly different depending on the meat type. That is, while the rest of family members ordered eye round steak and/or briskets, I ordered pho with eye round steak, brisket and tendon, my pho's broth had more fatty appearance than others, which made perfect sense. In addition, the taste was excellent, not too salty or light, and the amount of food I got, I believe was fairly priced ($14.95 as of March of 2023). I am very pleased of having discovered this new pho restaurants nearby and definitely look forward to visiting again...