Pho Thanh Binh — Restaurant in San Clemente

I used to love this place - I've been going to this restaurant since I was a kid just after it was converted from being the Waffle Lady that occupied the same building. I've lived in multiple cities and happen to be back in San Clemente for personal circumstances.

The food is overpriced (I ordered the $20 'rare beef' pho that we all know isn't rare, and I found 5 scraps of beef) in my bowl. Broth was fine as it should be at a Pho/Ramen/Soup, but nothing to write home about like it used to be. Irvine has better options. If $20 means "less meat" now with everything going on, I'd rather pay more to get what I was expecting.

On the service end, I was told "sit anywhere" faster than I could find a table - I was being yelled at "are you sitting here?! are you sitting here?!" virtually the second I walked into the joint.... why? Despite everything I was ready to buy more (specifically another beer and some spring rolls) and I had nobody checking in. It felt like I was lucky to be there and I should be grateful for even having a seat in what was a completely empty restaurant.

I don't know what happened to this spot that used to be a gem in San Clemente, maybe management? It used to be great value, good service, tried and true flavors other than subpar pizza, overpriced burritos, and self-aggrandizing culinary concepts.

I will never go back which is so disappointing. I really did love this place and after my experience I wouldn't recommend it to anybody.

For the reader - if you want very "eh" Pho in an sterile environment, want to be treated like you're inconvenient cattle for wanting a meal that you're paying for, and not be acknowledged despite wanting to buy more and paying for said meal, this...

MORGUE VIBE ! My wife and I were out on our Sunday bike ride to the downtown area. LUNCH TIME ! A couple of places where we usually eat proved unsuitable on the day so we started riding home at around 2pm. AND THEN ! As we passed In-N-Out Burger near the freeway overpass I remembered this Vietnamese joint that my wife thought might be worth a try one day. I suggested we have lunch here before we ride up the big hill to home...my wife agreed ! After parking our eBikes on the vacant back patio / front patio ( hard to tell ) I headed inside for a look and a menu. NOT IDEAL ! Dark and dingy came into my mind first....and it was almost empty. I asked a server for a menu and took it outside to show my wife. We are more than familiar with Vietnamese food and the menu had the usual suspects. It was the quality I was more worried about. In the end we decided to give it a go. My wife ordered 2 x Number 50's....Grilled Shrimp, Pork Vermicelli & Eggroll. DEFINITELY NOT A CHEERY PLACE ! The staff walked around like zombies and made no effort to be friendly to us. Even though the ratings on Google Maps and Yelp were okay I would say this joint has been running on fumes for years. Our lunch order arrived pretty fast and looked okay. BELOW AVERAGE ! I ate the 2 shrimp in my bowl and most of the chewy flavorless pork belly. Surprisingly more than a few people started to show up for dine-in or pickups. GIVE THIS PLACE A MISS IF YOU WANT...

So I walk in and it seems to be a mom and a dad and possibly your uncle and aunt that worked there staring at me an odd silence for about 20 seconds and then finally one of them decided to greet me with pick up not are you here for pick up? How may I help you just pick up I said no I would like to order a sandwich pork sandwich. The gentleman responded what kind of sandwich, but decided to yell it then I repeated myself pork, please. He then went to the cash register and put out his hand did not say anything but put out his hand referring to my card. I don’t know if it’s a language barrier or they feel as if they should just treat people like scum, but I felt very insulted. He did not tell me how much the sandwich was. He just went to charge the card. I stopped him and asked him how much is the sandwich and then he told me eight dollar. I said OK. He ran the card and I sat down and waited for my sandwich. He said it would take about 10 minutes I waited for about five minutes and my sandwich arrived instead of the gentleman handing the sandwich to me. He decided to place it on the opposite side of the room and said your sandwich is over there. I felt very disrespected and I thought that was very rude that he could not just hand me the sandwich. The customer service here was very sad. I do not recommend going into this restaurant due to the customer service...