Pho Thanh Xuan — Restaurant in Tamuning Municipality

Trying to find a good pho spot as I'm here for an extended stay.

Pho: overly sweet, but I don't think it's from veggies. Tastes like too much added sugar. Not enough pho spices, not fragrant like pho usually is. Portion size is tiny for $16. Won't get pho here again.

Bun: I got the special. Meat flavor was great - nice char on everything, good flavor. Normally people add sugar as a cheat to quicken the char, but they did not do so here. Nuoc mam was also great. Portion sizes, were again small. Even Philadelphia with it's expensive food charges you less for a bowl with 2x the amount of food. Bowl is about the size of my hand(I have small hands), and was filled up about 1/2 way.

Viet coffee: pretty good.

Atmosphere: okay. Besides the 50 flies that harassed me in rotation.

Service: okay. But I like places with okay service, I don't care to be waited on - I just require good food and clean space.

I'll try the other Viet places on the island before deciding where I wanna come back to.

Edit: 3 is not bad. It's neutral. 4 means 2 of the categories below were outstanding, whether it be food or service or atmosphere. 5 means all 3 of them were...

The food is really good. Probably the best pho on the island. My wife and I work in the restaurant industry and completely understand when mistakes happen and are very patient as a rule.

But we asked for extra round steak and received well done brisket. When my wife asked about it they said that's not what we ordered. They brought us more round steak but they charged us a second time.

We also ordered a Vietnamese coffee but it was so strong that it was undrinkable. I was crunching instant coffee granules between my teeth.

I tried to ask them to change the bill and the guy with the tattoos started yelling at me saying that's what we ordered and that we had to pay. He was actually swearing at me. I couldn't believe it was happening. I told him to fix it or I wasn't paying anything and he said he was calling the "f#@$!&* cops".

Finally someone took the coffee off our bill and that's when we realized they charged us twice for the meat.

I will gladly pay $40 for lunch for two if they can make it reasonably good quality. But I shouldn't be treated like I'm trying to scam them when they mess up.

I don't think I'll...

Our first time trying this place out randomly because I was craving a good noodle soup.

This is my first and last time here.

Pros: The staff seem friendly, but nothing that stands out.

Fresh lumpia - seems normal and the peanut sauce is not watery.

Cons: The broth - I don’t know what the other reviewers ordered that was so delicious even compared to stateside restaurants, but this broth disappointed my cravings. It was watered down and tasteless. It was like they’re trying to stretch out their broth to maximize sales?

Their fried lumpia at $5.75 was…. Not Vietnamese Lumpia… it was more like Shanghai Lumpia and they cut it in half. Why? Lol Shanghai lumpia is tiny and bite sized already! They also gave ONE 4inch length lettuce with some noodles and bean sprouts. I had to tear the lettuce into 4 pieces and attempt to make mini wraps. Total fail lol Shanghai lumpia is not worth $2.88 a piece…. Total scam.

I would normally give places a second try to give it a chance, but not here. Sorry.

Please find other ways to cut costs because the Pho and Lumpia here are not worth another try...