Viet Quan Vietnamese Noodle House — Restaurant in San Francisco

imma give this place 3.5 if i could. four words: good portions but bland. :/

unfortunately the place has poor ventilation which means it can get really hot in there- so they prop the door open, but it lets a lot of cold air in which i don't love. the service is pretty good. they are always coming up to you and wait time for food is pretty moderate and comes timely.

the part that disappoints me about this place is the taste of the food. so their prices and portions are good! but for both chicken pho and the rib beef pho, so so bland. you cannot taste the meat/bone broth in both types of soups. i was very disappointed in the taste when the pho(s) really LOOK amazing. though, their meat quality for both chicken and beef is great, the soup taste is the most important, and the taste a huge flop for me. (if the soup is bland, the noodles did not enhance it for me at all.)

their bun bo hue (takeout) does not taste authentic at all (to me) and though their most popular item is the french style black pepper steak cubes with tomato rice, it's nothing special to me. it looks exactly how it tastes so if that's what you like, please do get it. the only thing that tastes authentic (but not unique to just this place) is their imperial/egg rolls. it's fine, tastes right.

all and all, this place is more about aesthetics and portions for the food. but i do want to come back for the bone marrow to give them one last chance.

if that flops, i'm sorry but this place isn't for me. i...

Updated review 9/30/2022: The chef at Viet Quan knows his wok. Under the chef's special dishes section of the menu, I had their Hanoi fried rice $16. It had generous pieces of cha hue (Vietnamese ham), chicken, fried egg, green onion, grilled pork and shrimp. This was great. The fried rice had good flavor with the meats still moist. For good fried rice, the rice doesn't stick together and not mushy. The right amount of soy sauce removes the plainness of rice. For my appetizer, I had imperial rolls $9.50. Some places don't do it, but Viet Quan includes lettuce, mint leaves and rice noodles so that you can make wraps. Good stuff. Excellent service. No wait at 5:45pm on a Friday evening.

Original review: New Vietnamese restaurant on Taraval St. Opened until 9pm, there was still a line at 8:20pm. The menu is exciting. Sadly, most items were out of stock when I arrived. I wanted to try the Hanoi fried rice served in some sort of leaf. The table next to mine had it. The French style bone marrow and steak, ginger and scallion crab and other family dishes were at another table and they looked awesome. I ordered the Vietnamese carpaccio (raw beef) $16 and a beef rib pho large $20. They both tasted OK. It wasn't great. I'm just glad I don't have to drive down to San Jose to get decent beef rib pho. Service was friendly and my food...

The quality, time and price of the place in my opinion is not worth it. The front staff and kitchen staff have horrible communication (I saw a table next to me and had to send back their order twice to get it right and we had our appetizer arrive 8 mins after all our main dishes arrived and we were a quarter way through...) Poor staffing, but more specifically on the day I was there they had a huge party reservation of 20 people. Only one main waitress while the main owner assisted and took ToGo orders/helped close out dining tables as needed. It was very chaotic, and their attention to the customers needs like tea/water refills did not exist. I had to wait an extra 10 mins to get someone's attention to get the bill so my group and I could leave for the next batch of customers. We felt so bad for them awkwardly waiting in the restaurant and outside in confusion.

Pros: Staff was sweet but lacking knowledge of their own menu. Good location and clean restaurant. Staff were masked.

Cons: Food was okay, not good not great just okay. My beef rib pho soup was super sweet... Which I found so odd. Lack of basic customer service attention. Overpriced for the...