I Heart Pho — Restaurant in Saint Paul

Review - 3 years ago 5 star:"I'm here atleast once a week best pho in st Paul"

Today 2stars. I have been coming here since I moved to the area in 2016 on a weekly basis and if we didn't dine in we would door dash, the broth of their pho was always flavor full and now it's watery. I think the only thing that has not changed is their grilled pork spring rolls, but with time changes to fit the needs of the business happen to all restaurants. What I'm most disappointed is the gratuity charge. Here's the kicker, I am a pretty good tipper between 25 and thirty percent on the regular and if the server is a good attentive one I've been known to tip up to 50%. I didn't even know about the gratuity until my child walked up to pay in which we where told the gratuity is already added. there's nothing stated on the menu about a gratuity, there is no sign anywhere stating that it was automatically added, so for how long have I been getting billed a gratuity for eating at your restaurant with out my knowledge? Second why would you not have a sign stating that? This is the east side it is not unknown for teens to go there with their friend or people on a limited income( that still tip) and now they are tipping double essentially. So your pho quality and the quality of various items like the bahn mi decreases but the hidden charge pops up, and on a 76 dollar bill in which you took the liberty of adding 15%. Your server would have actually made a bigger tip, if you as a business had chosen not to be slick, robbing your server of the tip they deserved. We will not be back nor will...

Went for a take out order and was surprised it was only a few minutes wait. Ordered the meatball pho, which was good. Spring rolls were good. Came with a sweeter peanut sauce. Got a sandwich but the bread was really tough. Flavor for fillings still good.

The stir fry noodles was a different story. This is probably why it didn’t take long for this to come out: the pho noodles they use for this dish was literally tossed in some super mild flavorless sauce, veggies mixed in and miscellaneous shredded pork pieces at the bottom. I’ve had this dish before from them and it was actually stir fried with actual pieces of pork in it. This time, it was like they tossed everything together into the take out container. Noodles were just boiled, not stir fried. It was super pale. I ended up stir frying it at home and adding in sauces because there was no flavor. And barely any pork (if you count the shredded scraps at the bottom of the container). They were probably using up leftovers. Shame on the person who tossed this together.

I also ordered their tri color dessert. It was so sad looking…it was mostly green jelly and boba from their bubble teas. It was not good and I did not finish it. It also was watered down.

I would probably go back only for the pho if nothing else is open...

I would consider myself a casual regular at this particular location, I dine here often either with the boyfriend or with my cousin; usually the services hasn’t been great, but my bill had never been pre tipped before until recently. I went with my niece and nephew’s and the girl said that she had to add the 15% tip because there were 4 of us- but even so, I had naturally tipped even if the services were terrible; I don’t understand the change of mandatory add in tips’ and because of the add in tip in advance it showed that I double tipped- meaning she tipped on her end- and I added in a tip as well- as to she shouldn’t have done that. First and foremost, I understand that they were busy- but don’t force people to tip you handsomely for a service that you don’t deserve. You could’ve just initiate it with, “Since, there’s 4 of you today, we would appreciate a 15% tip from you.” Instead of punching it into the order, and also- they may not have looked the part, but they were growing teenagers. Don’t make it so- it seems like there’s 4 grown adult, we deserve a tip. A handsome one at that. I’ve had bad experiences at I heart pho on multiple occasions, but this very last one really had me heated. It...