Slanted Rice Vietnamese Bistro — Restaurant in Scottsdale

My Slanted Rice Review

The other day a friend who was sick asked if I could pick up some Pho, suggested Slanted Rice since it was recommended by someone I met months back who said it was best Pho restaurant he had tried locally.

Being that my friend and I came from Seattle, we were used to some very good Pho restaurants and quickly found that the local ones here in PHX/Scottsdale were far from the same level.

So here is my recent experience with Slanted Rice Vietnamese Bistro.

Upon arriving, I was greeted by 3 different employees over a 5 minute period. I explained to each one that I simply wanted to place an order to go, only the third employee told me to have a seat at the bar where I could place my order.

After sitting at the bar, the bartender moved some items out of the way and greeted me.

Two other patrons then came in and sat next to me who she greeted and started conversing with as well as provided them with menus ...... something I was not offered immediately.

After another 5 minutes she finally asked what I needed and when I said I wanted to place an order to go she started to offer me a menu, but I told her I knew what I wanted.

At that point, she started to talk with the other patrons again for another 5 minutes or so before turning back to me to ask what I wanted to order!!

So now that my order was placed, I focused on some taking care of some emails and other work while I waited. During this time, apparently my order was brought out in a bag ready to go, but was placed on the back counter near the other 2 patrons where it sat for over 10 minutes.

Having noticed that the other patrons who ordered after me received their food, I attempted to get the bartenders attention which took over another 5 minutes since she kept walking away from the bar area.

Once she finally came back, I asked if the bag was my order which it turns out it was .... and had been sitting on the counter for close to 15+ minutes at this point.

Now, I take my card out to pay and she tells me to wait for the waitress to come since she has to process the payment because food is on a different system.

At this point, the majority of other patrons have left while only a few people are sitting at the bar or some of the tables ..... yet the waitress seems unable to come to the bar to take care of my payment even though other people around me have paid for their meals.

I begin to tap my card on the counter in annoyance for another 10 minutes or more before the bartender finally goes to the waitress and asks her to take care of my order which she reluctantly does.

At this point, I am more annoyed by the fact that no one bother to recognize or apologize for the delays or even offered to discount my order now that it has gone cold with all of the waiting (over 30 minutes!).

I am not sure if this is how they handle their business all of the time or if it was just that day, but as someone who dines out regularly especially with all of the traveling I do, I found their customer service left a lot to be desired.

For stars, I am giving 2 rather than 1 since my friend said the Pho was really good and better than anything she has had since moving to AZ.

Am I open to giving Slanted Rice another try to show that this was a fluke? Not sure since I am really keen on the level of service and not just how good...

I came to this restaurant on a Wednesday Night, not so busy. The waitstaff are so busy chatting with each other. It was my very first time visiting Slanted Rice. I am so disappointed. If you don’t look up this place and just walked in, you wouldn’t know it’s a Vietnamese restaurant. Very Americanize. The place is overpriced and the servers are horrible.

Inattentive: I ordered Lemongrass Russell Sprouts for appetizer. They are so black and bitter I couldn’t eat it. I had a bite then push it aside. Clearly I don’t care for it. If a good waitstaff see that I don’t eat it, they would’ve ask if I want to order something else. At least offer. No one even care to asked. They charged me for it. I don’t mind to pay for it but at least OFFERED, ACKNOWLEDGED. I then ordered Pho To Go, back to the Hotel I found down there is no sauces in the bag. Pho tasted like salt water.

Unprofessional: A guest called in to order their food so it ready when they get there. A waiter with tattoos answered the phone. After he got off the phone, he was loudly badmouth about the guest with his waitresses non-stop. Every guests in the restaurant could hear him. I guessed it’s inconvenient for him and his co-workers to set up food and water at the Bar top for the guests before they come in. Since they are so slow. It’s interferes with their conversations.

Assumptions: The tattoos waiter dropped off my check, I pay it with cash. The waitress with glasses picked up my cash and never return with my change. I didn’t not say “keep the change”.

Inattentive, unprofessional and bad assumptions are the bad...

This is the first bad review I'm ever leaving in a public forum. The food isn't the problem which is why the review is 2 star. The service is which is why the review is a 2 star. Turns out our server was actually the "manager". I've never met someone in the service industry with such a low level of accountability in my life. Among many issues service related from the time we walked in, the one I'll talk about was a flat out lie. The waitress, keep in mind this is the "manager", brought out 2 of the pho tai with no noodles, only broth and steak. We ordered it with no scallions or onions but definitely with noodles and steak for our kids. 15-20 minutes later she brought the noodles in a side dish and with a big time attitude said, "the kitchen said they put noodles in but you said there were no noodles so here". By this time the soup was cold and the meal was ruined for at minimum 6 other reasons. The catch here is that the waitress wrote on the order no noodles, no onion, no scallions. I only know because that's what she put on the bill when it came. So the kitchen said there was noodles in there??? Lol. Again, the food wasn't even the biggest problem, it was 100% the attitude and lack of extremely basic customer service. I'm extremely sad and embarrassed for the folks that own this place. I would be horrified to have managers like this running...