Pho Mai #1 Noodle House — Restaurant in San Jose

Just had the worst experience in a restaurant tonight. I went over to eat with my kids after a Target run and order a rice plate along my kids food. One guy brings me a rice plate and I started eating. Like 5-10 minutes later another cook brings me my correct rice plate and I had already eaten about 1/3 of the food. I left the other plate and started eating my Original rice plate. One minute later an older woman who I was told was the owner came out and looked at the plate and then screamed at me asking why I ate from it. I told her that I do not know how the plates are supposed to look like as I am not Vietnamese and I just ate what I assumed was my order. Then she called on the second cook(hispanic guy) that brought my correct plate and started yelling at him and calling him a liar in front of all restaurant and in front of my kids. This caused my youngest kid to get stressed and he cried a little. This is not the correct way to treat anyone over a plate of food, the employee looked really scared as she was just going off on him. I tried calling the cook to tip him but they would not allow him to come out for a minute as he was working. Last time I visit this place and hopefully employee reports owner to labor department...

We came to Phone Mai because it was close to Seafood Market and they serve Filipino and Vietnamese food. However, the Filipino dishes are mostly breakfast and a few entree's that I noticed.

The restaurant was busy and cramped, the wait for our table was just a few minutes. While waiting @ the entrance, they have about 20 pictures of characters who "dined & dashed" - customers who left without paying... that's unfortunate not just for the owners but for this neighborhood.

I ordered the vermicelli bowl with grilled onion beef with grilled shrimp. First thing I noticed when I received my order, my bowl was missing the shrimp and the noodles were cold.

I'm used to having the noodles warm or room temp. Also, the onion beef was over cooked, it was tough. Instead of asking about my shrimp, I just made sure that we were not charged.

Also, we ordered the rice plates with grilled chicken and grilled beef with shrimp. My family said it was "okay, we had better"

The service was quick and the staff was friendly but we had better food @ other Vietnamese restaurants like Vung Tau, Thein Long or Sonny's Cafe to name a few. I don't think, we'll...

Like many other Pho restaurants, Pho Mai has a very large selection to choose from in terms of its menu. But Pho Mai takes to an extreme I've never quite yet encountered and it was overwhelming in a good way. Not only is there a large selection of soups, broth, and of course pho but an equally sized selection of traditional rice plates, tea, boba, shakes, and even a Filipino menu for good measure.

My first time I went with of course an order of Pho, specifically the 42, and an F2 to-go. I came hungry and was not disappointed. I was debating getting the F2 for there but a large bowl of the 42 filled me right up. Their bowls give a generous amount of rice noodles and a fair amount of the main ingredients for what I ordered.

My F2 order was exceptional: the loganisa wasn't in sausage form like I'm accustomed to but it tasted great. The egg was perfectly fried, and the golden garlic rice waa savory without being overpowering.

Definite recommendation with my only real complaint being they don't do free...