Phở Thanh Restaurant — Restaurant in Westminster

We were hungry at 11pm on a Friday and EVERYTHING in OC was closed except fast food! You gotta love the OC where at the stroke of 10 PM, everything stops. We headed to Little Saigon to Pho Thanh because its open 24/7. We saw some other Pho places open on the way, and agreed that they didn't seem too busy. When we visit Asian restaurants, we usually feel that the busier it is, the better it is. At 11:30pm Pho Thanh must have had 60 people in it!!

Does the perfect Pho place exist? I am beginning to think not. And the reasons it isn't are due to minor things or annoyances. The decor is plain and bright. Mostly Asian diners. I

The first thing that is great about this place are the condiments They have all the right ones. Not only do they have the Sriracha Chili Paste in a bottle, but the have the coarser, ground one with garlic in the jar. They also have satay sauce in a jar! The only thing that was missing was the Chinese pepper instead of regular black pepper.

Notice the authentic and complete veggie condiments. Look how they have the Gai (saw leaf) herb. So many places never have this. Since this place must do so much volume, everything is so fresh! The basil was so green and crispy along with everything else. They bring this to you right when you sit down. I like this because you can get to work tearing it up so you can put it torn up in your soup right when it arrives so it has a chance to steep. Too many places bring it with the Pho or (gasp!) even after it arrives!

I ordered the #1 special combination Pho with rare beef, cooked brisket, tendon, tripe. My chick had the Chicken Pho. We ordered egg rolls too with 1 coke and 1 iced tea.

First came the Pho. How come so many of these places don't understand what an appetizer is and that it should be brought out first?! My Pho came out right away; before the appetizer! Notice how perfect it is though! Notice how the rare meat is actually rare. Yet the broth is scalding hot! Then tendon is surrounded by gelatinous goodness and lots of green onion. The flavor of the broth is the most complex I have had in a while (and I have tried probably 20 Pho places in OC). Every flavor is so strong, but they all work together. You can taste the ginger a little more than the rest, but I like this. Strong anise, lemongrass, and a slight fish sauce flavor. All with a perfect sweetness to it. Absolutely stunning. Noodles are firm, yet silky. The don't clump together like some places. The meat was so tender and such a treat to have it so rare when its not ordered on the side. The tendon is like eating a melting, chewy morsel that literally melts in your mouth. The tripe is flavorful, crisp and chewy.

My Chick's chicken was the chicken they pull from the bone. Not like the places that use processed chicken. As a matter of fact some of the bones were still in there. Another small annoyance. A great strong chicken flavor in the broth as well.

Another small annoyance is that the portions are a little small in my opinion. They are not "small", but they are not large. How much more would it cost to toss in a little more broth and noodles? Maybe its because this stuff is so good, I always want more?

You have to pay for water if you ask for it and it comes in tiny bottles (I think 4 oz). A soft drink is $1.00 and comes in a tiny 8 oz glass. NO refills. This is pretty annoying and the only thing I really hate about this place. Its not worth it to be that stingy to your customers.

Next came the egg rolls half way through our Pho meal. Sorry about the bad picture. Notice how much lettuce you get. This is critical as most places always jack you on the lettuce and you never have enough to wrap all the egg rolls with. Also it came with lost of cilantro sprigs. A nice dipping sauce as well. They were not greasy and very light. But not a lot of flavor. I felt it could have used more filling in the inside. I would put these as "average"

Our total bill was $20.00 as I tipped horribly as I don't feel you get any service. They bring everything out to you and then they are...

This place is open 24/7 and that's honestly the selling point for Pho Thanh.

After a crazy night out at Downtown Fullerton, my friends and I were looking for a place to grab a bite. Granted, this was a little out of the way for us, but we decided to come here because we knew the menu was 50% off.

I'm not going to lie when I say that $5.25 is a great deal for Pho, but I also know that they purposely increase the "regular price" of Pho to $10 just so they can make it sound like a half-off deal is a steal. Still, I do think it's a decent price for the portion you get and that's what will make me come back for more.

I came here at about 3:30AM and it was a full house! I didn't know if it was because of the lunar new year, but the guests also didn't look like your drunken, college crowd either so I'm going to guess that this busy pace is very typical for their restaurant. I find that quite interesting, actually, as a majority of their clientele were middle aged adults with party sizes of 6 or more.

Some of the things I don't like about Pho Thanh include: Their dirty bathrooms I'm not sure how or why it's so difficult for woman to simply clean up after themselves, or why I have to put toilet paper on the floor because there's piss on the floor and I don't want to step on it, but I do also believe that their employees should do a better job of maintaining the cleanliness of their restrooms. I saw way too many cobwebs looking up and it honestly looked just as bad as your horror gas station bathroom stalls. Their 50 cent charge for water Look, I get that there's a drought and that we should be conserving water. But if you're going to drop a pitcher of water on my table and not tell me that you're going to charge 50 cents PER PERSON, that's just inconsiderate. Not to mention the fact that we obviously DRANK the water so we can't even dispute the charge. I wish there was more transparency with this... and certainly no reason to charge someone for tap water...

The last note is that this is a CASH ONLY restaurant!!! Please keep this in mind for your next visit.

Overall, Pho Thanh does a decent job at providing decent food at a decent price. While it's not on my top list of restaurants that would satisfy the drunchies, I would consider coming back here if I were craving pho at...

Went here at midnight after my 10 hour shift. I was tired and hungry wanting pho. This place opens 24hrs but accepts cash only-thats fone. I ordered there #14: rare steak, flank, tendon, and tripe with a side of pork and veggies eggrolls. The egg rolls tasted fresh and crispy. They were delicious, reminded me of my momma's eggrolls (just missing the taro). It didn't taste like it was pre rolled and frozen. The pho came out about 10-15 minutes after ordering which is a bit unusal for a pho place but normal otherwise. It was good. The broth was clean and the meats were well graded. Sometimes, you get bad quality rare thin sliced steaks but this place was good. Everything had a clean taste to it with a balance of rich and savory. The herbs were fresh as well! That night, they played music pretty loudly for a pho restaurant it consisted of Hispanic, b-boy funk, and some Vietnamese. It was a louder environment than I am used to at a pho restaurant but considering the hour I was there, I'm sure a lot of the customers there were trying to either sober up or filling up before having a night out or ending a night out. I'm definitely keeping this spot as one of my pho places. I just really enjoyed the clean tasting proteins and appreciated the love the broth had (it didn't taste like a bunch of ingredients thrown in 30 minutes, it tasted of love and time with simmering, melding the ingredients together and bringing out the flavors of each ingredient.) I look forward to eating here during the day. Yes, pho is an any time of the day thing for myself. Oh! And the bill was about $40.00 and some change for: one regular #10 rare steak pho (it's size regular or large), one regular #14 (my combination of rare steak, flank, tendon, and tripe), one #2-eggrolls (you get 5 peices and lettuce to wrap it up), and a side of steamed rice to go. Water is...