Pho Da Lat — Restaurant in Spring Valley

I hate to write a poor review for a business that I once loved and visited frequently. To be honest, the food is still really good. But the atmosphere and most of all on today's visit, service, leaves a lot to be desired. I get that in these hole in the wall places, especially Asian places, service is not going to be excellent but I do still expect basic courtesy and competence, which was lacking today.

It's been a while since I've been here and it's so disappointing. Terrible service from a despondent and rude man. No smiles or greeting. We seated ourselves and he acted like he could not be bothered with us even though there was only one other table here. We had a baby and he never offered to help us with a child seat. I ordered and pointed at the menu what i wanted, the tomato crab soup, pointed repeatedly and asked verbally repeatedly. Every time he came to the table to drop off the bean sprouts or the waters we would thank him and he wouldn't say anything or have any response.

I was so hungry. We then waited for what seemed like forever to get our food and I got the wrong soup! No apology. He took it back without a word. Now I'm waiting again. Will not be coming back here again in a long time, maybe never. The atmosphere is already lacking with poorly placed seating that's super cramed but there's nothing like horrible and rude service with mistakes to boot.

Previous Review in March 2020: Can you imagine the perfect hole in wall restaurant? Da Lat may have to be it. The first time we came here, I was not impressed with the ambiance and that they didn't have a bathroom! I crossed my legs to hold in the pee and gave the server some nasty looks. But the food was good and I went back. Well, I'm in a new kick of trying new things on menus so I ventured away from my usual pho dac biet and vermicelli noodle picks and got the "tomato with crab pho."

The world stopped and I was smitten.

It was so. damn. delicious. Real crab. Not the fake kind you get at sushi places. The soup was out of this world. The whole bowl was deliciousness that I wanted to dive into, swim in for 40 days doing endless breast strokes and risking shark attacks, and imbibe with closed-eye gratitude. Never have I been more glad to have ordered something I've never tried. At the risk of sounding like a dating profile, I looking forward to many more adventures with you, Da Lat. Wink*

Oh and do they do have a bathroom. It's just behind the curtains in the kitchen. The only question left is: How many ways...

3.3/5 (Uber Eats Delivery)

Korean Short Ribs Vermicelli - Bun Bo Dai Han ($18.95): This was the best item we got from here. They gave a good amount of short ribs that had great flavor but were a bit salty. Da Lat doesn't provide a lot of greens like you would typically expect for a vermicelli bowl so that was disappointing - would have been nice to balance out the salty short ribs. Besides the short ribs, the the fish sauce/nuoc mam was really good so I had to save the remaining sauce to eat with my leftover rice at my next meal.

Thai Green Milk Tea ($7.50) With Boba ($0.50): They didn't have Thai green milk tea so our Uber Eats delivery guy called and asked if we were okay with substituting for Thai tea. We said yes. When we received our order, we were shocked to see that they gave us the Thai tea without the non-dairy creamer. I checked their Yelp page and website, and the pictures show the Thai tea with non-dairy creamer...I think they ran so they tried to make it up for it by filling the whole cup with the Thai tea part. If I had known the Thai tea doesn't come with non-dairy creamer (like it should), I would have canceled the drink order instead of substituting. Feels kinda sus that they weren't upfront about it. Anyways, the sweetened Thai tea itself wasn't bad, but the boba was kinda hard. Just get your boba fix somewhere else.

Crab Meat Udon Soup - Banh Canh Cua ($22.50): They gave a generous portion of seafood but I wasn't a fan of the soup. The soup is a bit too watery and doesn't taste right. I think they used canned crab meat because it was really salty. My husband thought it...

I love this place—it's a "hole-in-the-wall" but in a good way. I see a lot of taxi drivers in there on break which I take as a kind of "stamp-of-approval." I'm in there most afternoons after taking the wife to work so I'm something of a regular. I'll usually have the combo Pho or one of the rice plates.

The Pho is pretty good—just about the right size for me. The rice plates are excellent and have a nice presentation. The lettuce wrap egg rolls are also good. They have a clear dipping sauce (I don't know what it's called but it's like a mild form of Pilipino fish sauce, "patis.") that adds a tangy-edge to the egg rolls.

The only hitch (for some) is that there is no customer restroom—if you need to use the facilities they are in the back through the kitchen. There is a sink up front so you can wash your hands but you'll be behind the register as you do it!

Currently they stay open until 4AM which I have taken advantage of a few times and the food is consistent with their afternoon cooking.

This is a good place for locals to get their Pho fix. For tourists: If you're into Pho or Vietnamese food in general it's worth a try. If you're staying at the Palms its walking distance!

The Google Street View shows the Subway which is next door to Da Lat. There is a sign next to the street for the mini-mall itself but the Subway sign is usually easy...