Pho Hoa & Jazen Tea - Mercado — Restaurant in Santa Clara

They're smart to put a Jazen Tea in this Pho Hoa since many of the reviews post the fact that there is boba available which I'm sure shores up the ratings a bit. It's also nice to see that a prime location and a sparkly interior is all you really need for people to come visit your establishment.

We came in and waited by the rather large "Please wait to be seated" sign which I guess was obscured from the waitstaff by the people waiting for the tea orders which meant that we were largely ignored for a number of minutes while we stared at all the open tables that were available. When someone finally left the tea bar to come ask if we needed to be seated they gave us a little "oh I have an open table for you right here". Well yes, I had observed that for a while now.

I had a bad experience with the food here before albeit as a vegetarian but with no more dietary restrictions holding me back I decided to get a grilled chicken bowl. My date ordered a pho which came out first. His order was a medium pho that was $11.95. Now it's a little interesting that they have 3 sizes of pho. An extra small portion, the regular, and a large. The extra small portion starts at $10.95. That's what most real pho places start around for their regular size. Now you're thinking maybe their regular size is actually a large which makes up for the difference. It wasn't. It was a regular size. So this price differential must be explained somehow right? Maybe it was the amazing broth? Maybe it was the copious amounts of meat? Well since both were missing it's probably just the rent in the Mercado. There actually was an aroma of broth in the restaurant but I guess all the flavor evaporates away or they just spray pho air freshener everywhere. My meal was 'healthy' to say the least. There wasn't much flavor in anything which was not unexpected since a lot of it was vegetables but even the pickled carrots themselves seemed half-hearted and like they would rather not be on the plate. The fish sauce was basically water with a bit of chili flakes in them. The chicken was alright if you enjoy the amateur backyard BBQ burnt grill taste.

But yeah at least...

Today I came to eat here with my family. When we came in we were seated and given menus, then we were forgotten. We had to get up, walk to a server and tell them we were ready to order while walking them back to our table. They had finally taken our order, 1 regular size bowl of chicken pho, and 2 large size bowls of beef pho. Before the waiter left, we asked for chili oil. A few minutes later the food comes out, without the oil we specifically asked for. So once again we had to get up, walk to a server and ask them to bring some. Then they brought us chili oil but it was a very small amount in a cup, the amount you would use for a single person. We were hungry and didn’t feel like getting up to ask for something once more so we just split it and tried to enjoy the food. Grabbing a spoon from the side utensils that are supposed to be clean, unsurprisingly there was food left on the first one I grabbed. I just put it to the side and grabbed a different one that looked clean, and we started eating. The soups were all very flavorless, can not stress enough how bland. We kept eating some of it anyways because we were so hungry, but eventually we ended up leaving the rest there and going to pay. Might I add, when we needed refills on water we also had to get up and grab the pitcher from a table the waiters have to serve the customers and serve ourselves. Nobody even noticed. When we went to pay, my sister was pretty upset with the experience and told the person at the register that the service today was horrible and that the food was bland. The employee just nodded, didn’t apologize for the experience, didn’t even offer a slight discount for the...

Alex, the waiter had a horrible attitude! Not recommended this restaurant! So rude!!! After 3 hours of driving, our family decided to have dinner at this restaurant.

The restaurant was slow and there were a lot of empty tables. We came in the restaurant and Alex showed us the table to sit. We told him we preferred another table and moved to the table that would serve 5 people. Alex started pointing at us and said in a very rude manner that we should move out of the table and this is not our house. He than started to tell us to sit at the table that He assigned us. He walked around and kept pointing fingers at us from a distance and spoke very rude vietnamese about us. We happened to understand the language.

Alex came to our table and said straight to our face with our 3 children were siting at the table, “you should learn how to listen, This is not your house.”

What”’s kind of a waiter is this? He could have said nicely if he wanted to move us to another table. He started to authorize that he will not serve us and with the same Rudeness in his tone to move us out of the table.

His voice was very rude and the way he pointed at our faces while talking was super rude.

We asked, can we speak to the manager? Alex than said, you move out of the table. Again, he was so rude!!! We could not take his rudeness attitude. Our family of 5 walked out the restaurant.

We took our kids to another restaurant. I later came back to the restaurant and spoke to the manager about Alex’s rudeness behaviors.

Not recommended this...