Thanh Son Hien Khanh — Restaurant in San Jose

MEDIOCRE RICE CAKES - Dec 2021 The big roll of Bánh Tét is mostly of rice. The stuffing (inside, in the middle) was minimal. The mung bean paste was dried. The pork was tasteless. There is not a hint of coconut milk or pandam leaves (lá dứa). I would not be surprised if this rice cake was frozen earlier. I had to give this review (it should even be minus one star) to defend the reputation of our real Vietnamese rice cake. It supposed to have a moderate layer of sweet rice, good portion of mung bean paste smoothed by a touch of coconut milk, nice pieces of pork well marinated and soft with a little fat to keep it moist. We are supposed to be able to taste the pork and not just some dry meat. This rice cake sold at Thanh Sơn Hiển Khánh was really an affront to our traditional Vietnamese Bánh Tét. I attached a picture that looks much better than the real thing. Don’t be fooled to think that...

This place sells authentic Vietnamese food to go and the food was super authentic and good. I’m Vietnamese and I verified this place has the most affordable and delicious banh mi in San Jose. We went at the end of the day and those sweet aunties gave us multiple discounts on left over food that they had on the table. I had banh mi thit nuong, sweet tofu was good and cheap, I also got banh gio. The sweet tofu normally gets sour after you left it overnight, but I left it in the fridge for 3 days and still delicious. Banh gio meat was well seasoned, I expected there was quail eggs but no eggs. Thit nuong was well seasoned with childhood taste, it would be salty if you eat it by itself but it was perfect when combining with vegies and banh mi. The amount of meat and vegies was a lot for the price. The aunties working there might not speak English pretty well but I confirmed the...

I have mixed feeling about this place. Here's why.

Parking sucks. Tho, they do reserve some parking for their customers so it's not a big deal, just getting there sucks, this part of Vietnam town is ALWAYS in heavy traffic.

The place is big with many sorts of food to chose from, which is good. But there is absolutely no way to know where the line starts and ends. Hard to describe but it's hard to know if I am cutting someone or someone is cutting me.

Pros: everything I bought was very good. Better quality than Lee's or Dakao

Cons: they don't have price tag on anything!! Like what if I only have $20 cash, I won't know if I have enough?!

the sugar cane was a rip off. It was good but rip off. It was not cheap (but I don't know how much it costs...because nobody tells me nor there was a price tag, I assume it was in the $3-4ish.), but 90% ice, 10% sugarcane....