Viet Aroma — Restaurant in Vienna

My wife and I discovered a great family owned Vietnamese Restaurant in Vienna Virginia on Glyndon Street very close to Whole Foods called Viet Aroma. The food is fantastic! We went first in April and have been back many times since then. It’s consistently great! The portions are filling. This restaurant knows what the human heart wants and delivers every time in perfect quantity, flavors, and warm service!

We recommend the sesame beef watercress salad with low spice. The beef is tender and marinated and cut in to bite size pieces mixed with watercress, cucumbers, and the most perfect vinaigrette dressing. It’s a must!

The clay pot fish. Oh my goodness this is heavently! Fish cooked in clay pots with Caramelized onions served deliciously hot, the flavors waft up and like the introduction to a great play on stage. I can’t get enough. This one dish will keep you coming back for more weekly.

The Vietnamese Classic dish I remember as Bo Luc Lac is called Shaky Beef at Vietnamese restaurants today. Viet Aroma makes this perfect. Cubed beef marinated in garlic.

If it was just great food, it would be already fabulous. But it’s much more. There is a certain feeling like walking in to a wondrous Scottish Glen, experiencing magic. Magic!! Words escape me but perhaps it’s because words aren’t the appropriate medium. The feeling eating Viet Aroma’s food is vibrant, healthy, warm intelligent, perfectly prepared food. Les Amis d’Escoffier Family Style while at the same time cozy, fresh, crisp. The highest...

I come here for clay pot chicken and summer rolls. Consistently fresh ingredients handled well by kitchen staff. Clay pot always arrives at table piping hot and dish is flavorful. Broth is delicious. Summer rolls are always fresh and tasty. Reasonably priced fare and service is decent.

Update 04.25.2020

Downgrading from 4 stars to 1 star. I stopped dining here several months before pandemic. After a couple visits noticing massive quality degradation of clay pot chicken, interviewing the younger of the 2 servers working there, I was told new cook (cannot use the word chef here) in the kitchen. New cook cutting chicken pieces too thick for the dish causing inadequate marinade process. Cut needs to be thin and pieces tenderized ("tenderize" -sophisticated way of saying hitting with a mallet). Thick cut does not allow marinade to permeate meat yielding blah taste. Also, recipe ingredients were left out including but not limited to peppers. Both of the servers not taking my easily verifiable analysis/criticism well on several subsequent visits hoping for improvement the 2 servers treated me with indifference and not so subtle body language message that I am not welcome there. Which is okay with me. I am happy to drop them from my circuit. I am a regular on the other side of the street at terrific pan asian restaurant...

The server was a bit cold and unwelcoming. A fake wannabe fancy restaurant. This place is a disappointment for a Vietnamese cuisine, especially when there are many authentic ones near by. I was surprised the meats were not freshly made from raw meats but were from recooked meats in all the three dishes we ordered. Apparently, the meat (as one can see the chicken in the photo) were pre-poached then shredded/cut and placed in the stir fry recooked. Some meats were still cold, dry, and overcooked. Temperature was uneven in the dishes as the vegetables were hot, meats were cold. The beef in stir frying was also poached and the same type thin slices as the beef meat for the pho noodle soup. The beef are not freshly cut raw and stir fried in the dishes, therefore re-cooked were dry, over cooked, and tough to chew. The combination dish was like a throw together leftovers. Definitely would not recommend this place.

Btw, make sure to check your bill, we found the menu prices are different than the prices on the bill. When questioned, the lady replied the carry out menu price was the price she used, even though we were dining in. There is problem with...