Kim Sơn Restaurant — Restaurant in San Francisco

As part of my new year resolution, I am going out of my comfort zone and trying new things. Today, I finally tried Kim Son. I live in the neighborhood and walked to the restaurant. They were at full capacity but quickly greeted me as I entered. I asked to place a takeout order and was given a menu. I decided on the #3 Beef Pho. I was quoted a 10 minute wait for my food. I waited outside and checked out the Balboa Theater a few doors down. I returned in exactly 10 minutes, and my order was just being placed near the register. I'm very impressed with the promptness considering how busy the dining room appeared. The staff member was very nice and welcoming. A short walk home and I unpacked my order. The broth was in a large contained, there was a small bag of bean sprouts with sprigs of basil, jalapeños and packets of hoison sauce, and finally a takeout container that held the thinly sliced beef, noodles, and freshly chopped spring onions and cilantro. I combined everything in a large bowl and indulged in a very flavorful meal that left me full and smiling. I will definitely be trying more of their many offerings in the near future. A great meal and experience to start off...

Food/Taste/Flavor: 3/5 - very different ratings depending on dish 5/5 - (2) Pho Dac Biet which is the house special beef noodle soup with all the beef options and (6) Pho Tai, Gan which is fresh sliced beef & tendon noodle soup. Both have fairly clear broth that's nicely flavored with an earthiness rather than just being salty. The soup was still hot that it cooked the sliced beef when poured over. Onion and cilantro is automatically included in the noodles with options of bean sprout and lemon 1/5 - Special Combination Rice Plates with pork chop, egg roll, rice, and soup. It's always disappointing when the rice is bad in a rice dish :( Part of it seemed like old/leftover rice since it was stale with some crunchy chunks, and stuck together. The pork chop, while nicely flavored, was dry and hard to chew. The egg roll was decent but not amazing

Ambience: N/A - ordered food to go

Service: 4/5 - may have slight language barrier and the older gentleman was starting to wrap up for the night so it does take a few moments to catch his attention

Value for price: 3/5 - worth for the pho, would skip...

A solid offering at a reasonable price.

No frills, no nonsense type of business. Friendly staff, food served quickly, always crowded but never quite full.

Spring roll - 4 stars. The spring roll itself was one of the tastier ones I've had, and it was packed together/rolled tightly so it didn't fall apart as I was eating it. The peanut sauce was weak, however. Too runny, not enough peanut flavor.

Bun rieu - 4 stars. A huge bowl of comforting goodness. Tomato based broth with a ton of noodles, chunks of meat and seafood, served with the usual pho-style accoutrement. A bit salty and heavy on the noodle, but delicious.

Catfish claypot - 3 stars. This actually SHOULD be a 5 star dish but the bones! Bones everywhere! Some small, some large, impossible to see before biting into the fish. It made it such that we couldn't enjoy the dish at all, which was a bummer, because the flavors were PERFECT. Caramelized, slightly sweet, slightly savory, slightly fatty. Overly salty, but man. If the fish was deboned I'd eat this for days.

Overall, I'll come back if I'm in the...