Pho Cafe

ordered a large Pho, but the portion of meat was incredibly small. The noodles themselves didn't taste authentic and weren't good at all. Other places serving the exact same Pho don't give you such a pitiful amount of meat. Definitely not worth coming back here. To make it worse, the lady owner was super defensive and insisted that’s just how much meat you get. Never coming back here again. Definitely wouldn't recommend to friends and family。

Not bad for Daly City. The restaurant was mostly empty on a Monday evening. The menu has a big +$1 price adjustment on top. My Five Spice Chicken garlic noodles $16 tasted OK. The chicken was a bit dry. Luckily they have fish sauce on the side. The pickled vegetables were served on top of leave lettuce. The garlic noodles had a hint of butter and a mild garlic taste. The disappointing part was that some of the noodles would break apart due to them being flimsy. Service was fine as I received a water refill. I was left a bit hungry still and had to get some popcorn chicken and a Thai iced tea next door.

I don't relish in being overly critical. That said, I am giving 2 stars because as a restaurant with "pho" in their name, that ought to be their specialty, and solidly deliver. Unfortunately, it did not. I ordered a large brisket and rare beef pho with extra raw beef on the side. The biggest issue is that the broth doesn't taste like pho. And that's kind of the point of ordering pho isn't it? I would describe it as an approximation in the direction of pho but it missed the mark. It didn't taste bad per se, but the flavor was just wrong, and if you went here craving pho (and are Vietnamese or are very familiar with how authentic pho tastes), you would be disappointed. Also the meat portions are **super** skimpy. That extra beef I ordered? 4 thin, average-sized slices for $6. There wasn't much in the bowl either, and combined with the extra portion, it still felt less than what you'd get in a medium bowl elsewhere. So I can't in good conscience give it higher than 2 stars for the food. Service and atmosphere get 3 stars since it was fine (I reserve 4+ for great to exceptional, and consistently so). Overall, 2 stars make sense because obviously the food is the most importantly thing. Pro tip: if the menu doesn't list items in Vietnamese in addition to English, it's prob not a good sign. Not a guarantee of course, but this experience aligns with the heuristic; the menu was in English and Chinese only.

Ambience was nice and the employees were all really nice! However, the dishes took a really long time to come. Crab meat & tomato soup: the soup was absolutely bland. Have you ever tried putting tomatoes on boiled water? Yeah, it tasted exactly like that. The tomato wasn't even boiled/cooked. It looks like it's fresh from the garden/market and dumped into the bowl after they pour the hot water/"broth". Grilled pork chop noodles soup: opposite of the tomato soup, this is too salty/sweet not in a good way. I think tasted more like instant pho seasoning that you can get in asian stores. The pork chop on the other hand, is more in the bland side but the seasoning also tasted off. I'll give them points for the portion though. For small bowls and their price, they are huge and have a lot of noodles.

Dining here felt like a total scam: they force an extra charge just to put raw beef on the side, then add another fee for credit cards to push customers into paying cash. After years in San Francisco, I’ve never seen a place this greedy and shameless. Congratulations — if you come here, you’ve found the worst pho restaurant in the city.