Cơm Tấm Thiên Hương — Restaurant in San Jose

I flew in from Seattle to hang out with my Brother that lives here in San Jose for his birthday. His wife and Himself spoke about this place and originally spoke highly of their previous experience. So you can imagine that I was excited to dine here. I’m Vietnamese myself, but have never traveled to San Jose to experience the Vietnamese Culture here, so this was something I was looking forward to.

My Brother, His Wife and myself sat outside to have lunch because we wanted to be near the trees. The tables weren’t clear yet, but we mentioned that we’ll be patient and wait for them to bus the tables, so that we can eat outside. Not a big deal for us to wait. However, it seemed like they didn’t want to clear the section because it was more work. Keep in mind that it wasn’t busy at all when we sat down, however people we slowly coming in after we ordered our food.

25 minutes go by and the people around us were served their rice plates and pho.. I understand pho is served quickly, but how can their rice plates be served before us and we were there 10-15 minutes prior to anyone else in our section? Bizarre. Now it just seems like we’re aren’t welcomed based on service priority.

We waved down a man and asked where our food was because everyone else was served around us. He gave us a look, didn’t acknowledge us, then walked away with an annoyed facial expression.

5 minutes later they came out with our food and quickly noticed that all the proteins were cold! How do you BBQ beef ribs and shrimp, then it comes out cold? The only part of our meal that was hot was the broken rice. Not even the broth bowl soup was hot. That’s crazy. Unimpressed and annoyed, we asked the server to exchange our plates. She then suggested for us to put the proteins on a plate so she could microwave it, instead of making us a new plate that is up to basic standards. If we wanted something cold to eat, I would’ve went to get ice cream. They didn’t even try to accommodate for their bad service or tried to make it right.

We just ended up eating our plates cold because at this point we understood that they weren’t going to do anything to make our experience a positive one.

After finishing up the meal, we spoke to management and the server accused us of eating half of our meal before notifying them about the cold plates. I took a bite of the rice and only touched the ribs with my fingers to feel the temperature. Not only do they not take accountability, they would insult us and lie about the situation to avoid accountability.

I know I don’t live here, but I truly wanted to like this place and come back when I visit from Seattle. That will never happen though. I’m sure there are other restaurants around the area that appreciate their customers and serve food with pride.

The place had potential, then you realize they’re selective about which customers deserve good service.

Look at the photo. Looks great doesn’t it? Well, it would be if it wasn’t cold, and if they actually wanted you to be there.

Only thing good about this place is the neighbor Coffee shop next...

Clean, bright restaurant serving Vietnamese comfort food!! Service is fast and efficient, the gentleman managing the dining room welcomed us in and got us seated in a booth away from the door, a nice warm spot on a cold and rainy evening. I came with a friend to experience her culture. Like many people I enjoy phô but hadn't ventured much beyond. We both ordered #36. The meal starts with a bowl of broth, very delicious, and a smaller bowl of fish sauce to season your steamed rice with. If you enjoy a little spice, add the shredded white radish from your salad and as much as you like of the chili sauce condiment. Start small if you've never tried this type of chili sauce, it's powerful. The BBQ grilled chicken thighs are served with a fried shrimp cake (deep fried tofu skin wrapped shrimp & egg packet), rice and a super fresh salad. The chicken was pounded thin to insure even grilling and then marinated. Juicy but still a nice char from the grill. Perfect in my opinion! As you can see from my photo, this is a huge serving! This dish cost $17.50 and considering the portion size and freshest quality, I rate this a bargain for dining out in 2024! I took half of mine to go. I can't wait to go back and...

Extremely RUDE customer service. The guy who took us pointed us to a patio table, but we asked for inside table to which he said there was none. We asked how long would the wait be and he said “I don’t know”. And while we were deciding if we should just go w patio table (which was like 3 seconds) he left us to take another group. How rude!!!!

As for the food, everything single thing was overwhelmingly sweet. Had sugar coma after eating just a few bites of their special cơm tấm. Every single bite felt like a spoonful of sugar. Servers would just randomly take stuffs from your table while mumbling “excuse me”. I’d rather pay $2k flight ticket to Saigon to have proper cơm tấm and be treated like a fellow human than enduring this.

I do not get the hype about this place! Why is it acceptable that Asian restaurants can get away with bad customer service as long as the food this decent. Why not both?? It just leaves an awful image on the Asian community. We should have higher standards. I can’t take my non-Viet friends to a Viet restaurant without having to warn them about the bad customer...