Real Pho — Restaurant in San Antonio

I'm updating my review due to new management. After 4 years of eating here I became close friends with the owners. But after the owners left I came back to try it out with the new management. I can say that I won't be returning. Service was slow and bad. Portions were smaller. Prices were higher. $8.50 for "not even a handful" of fried squid and it wasn't as good as the previous owner. My spicy beef noodle soup wasn't spicy. My husband's lemongrass dish barely tasted the lemongrass. The kids fried rice was bland and not to mentioned the waitress came back and asked me if it was the kids sweet and sour chicken after I clearly said kids fried rice. I ordered sweet tea but I'm pretty sure I got Thai tea as it was thick and dark in color and tasted like Thai tea. She insisted it was sweet tea and I made sure I wasn't charged extra. Food and drinks were brought out one order at a time and I didn't even have napkins after asking for some. I'm Vietnamese and it's sad I won't be supporting this restaurant anymore.

4 years ago: I lived down the road from Real Pho and finally got a chance to try out the place tonight. SERVICE: Service was not the greatest. We came in and was greeted by a lady. She asked us how many and then told us we can sit wherever we like. She brought us the menus and then left. At least 5 minutes later, a young waiter came and asked us what we want to drink. He can barely speak English. As we were giving him our drinks order, he stopped us and said he'll be right back. He went to the counter to grab a pen and notepad and came back to take our drinks order again. We had to repeat like 3 times before he got only 4 drinks order down. He brought us the drinks and started taking our orders. Again, we had to repeat ourselves until he got it all down. We ordered an egg dropped soup and a wonton soup. He brought out 2 egg dropped soups so I made him correct my orders. A few minutes later I realized I forgot to ordered my soup so I told him what I wanted and he said let me go ask them if we have any. Then a lady came out and asked me what I wanted. After that the rest of the service was ok. When it was time to pay, I double checked my bill. They tried to charge me for the extra egg dropped soup they brought out so I made sure I only paid for what I ordered. FOOD: My girls had the soups and my husband and I had 2 different vermicelli. They weren't excellent but it was for sure above average. The portions, in my opinion, fits the price. I'm Vietnamese so l know how authentic Vietnamese food should look and taste, and by far, this fits the category. I would go definitely go back...

As a Vietnamese, I had expected more from a place named "Real" Pho, but was really disappointed. I had the combination vermicelli, it was decent: the grilled pork was tasty, the shrimp was battered and fried instead of grilled like other places, the one egg roll was tasty, the nuoc mam sauce was plain, with no chillies, garlic, carrots, or lime juice - I had to add Sriracha to give it some color. My husband had the Veggie pho with veggie broth: it was boiled veggies in water, no flavor at all, no pho spices or flavor, not even salt. We also ordered the meatball banh mi and a Cha Lua banh mi, which were the worst I've had in San Antonio: The bread was a regular bready hoagie although it was slightly toasted, it was still white and not a real french loaf that's fluffy on the inside and flaky crispy on the outside. There is no pate, no soy sauce, no pickled carrots and radish, there might have been a hint of mayo, and the cucumber slices were miniscule. The meatballs were bland, breaking apart, and had no tomato sauce (yes, Vietnamese meatball sandwiches also have a tomato sauce, but it's not like the American tomato sauce). The Cha Lua banh mi had 2 oblong chunks of dry Cha Lua (supposed to be soft and moist) instead of cut in thin deli style slices. It had whole peppercorns in there, which I did not like, although some might enjoy that kind of Cha Lua. The prices were also quite high for such foods, there are other higher quality Vietnamese restaurants having lower prices. The ambiance of the area was a bit hodgepodge, like it was renovated in small chunks, by different people with different design ideas (the floor tiles). The menus had the prices scribbled out, but no new prices were added, so you don't know how much anything costs. They also have handwritten phone numbers on them. It's all very...

I’ve come here before and the Pho is usually really good. Right now, I’ve been sitting here for over an hour after I ordered fried rice. The server hasn’t checked on us even once. I’d normally be upset, but right now I’m just impressed that we could sit here for so long and be completely ignored. There were only two other parties dining in at the time. This is definitely a unique dining experience!

UPDATE: The cashier came up and asked us if we had received our food yet. That was about five minutes ago. (I think they don’t even know what we ordered.)

UPDATE: They found our food and it arrived sans napkins or heat. The Vermicelli with beef should have been renamed Vermicelli with jerky. At least my fried rice was reheated in a microwave.

I’ve come here maybe once every two to three months in the last few years and, without fail, the food was somewhere between “ok” and “almost great.” However, after today, I’ll never come back here. There are much better places that are better run. Heck, even the menu here has all the prices blacked out! I have NO CLUE what the bill is gonna be for our cold noodles and...