Pho Tau Bay

02/24/11

been to the rest...this is the best

by JoeyEats at Citysearch

Friendly staff, amazing food. Support this place and go every chance you get!!!

Their grilled pork is possibly the best food I've ever had in my mouth!

02/14/11

Great Food; the Real Thing

by rjw2000 at Citysearch

I have been eating several times each week at the restaurants on Eat Street for 23 years, because I work a few blocks away. I can't imagine why a couple reviewers gave bad reviews to this excellent restaurant. If you want good, fast, mass-produced Asian, you can get that a few doors away. If you want to eat the real stuff, well-made, among real Asians, this is the best place on Nic. There are very few gringos in this place; the decor is old-fashioned and whatever the opposite of fancy is. But there's a very good reason that the Vietnamese flock here.

The pho is excellent, and the spring rolls are about the best on on the street. If you want to have atmosphere, go somewhere else. If you want real Vietnamese food, served by delightfully friendly people, this IS the place.

06/07/10

Took a Chance and Lost

by parishphd at Citysearch

After being devoted for years to Quangs up the street, we decided to try out Pho Tau Bay. There was nothing at PTB that worked for us. The flavors were all muted and one dish - a soup - had to be sent back due to a strong smell of some sort of cleaning agent in the bowl. Even though I didn't ask for a replacement - my appetite was gone - they didn't think to remove the soup from the bill. Didn't argue - just paid and left. This might have been a great place years ago, but if they didn't own the building, they would not be in business.

• Pros: Plenty of Seating
• Cons: The Food

03/19/10

Delicious specialties

by jblaze1801 at Citysearch

They have one of the best weekend specialties menu, if you would like some authentic vietnamese rice vermicelli soup then try the:

Periwinkle soup -- it's only available during the weekends. Or try some of the Chicken Congee or Roasted Duck with egg noodle (Mi Vit Tiem).

I go there at least twice a month just for the periwinkle soup, say hi if you see me slurping away!!!

Oh plenty of parking too.

• Pros: ample parking, great weekend dishes
• Cons: outdated decoration

01/10/10

Ick

by shawnjohnson at Citysearch

Smell--This restaurant stinks like fecal matter! The second you walk in, it hits you. We asked our server about it (assuming it was a freak occurrence), but he wasn't aware of any smell. Seriously, it was like an outhouse.

Quantity--I went to the restaurant because of the glowing reviews I had read about the portion size. I was surprised that the portions were very small.

Quality--My table ordered a broken rice pork dish, a pho, and a pineapple beef dish. They were all substandard. The pho and pork had no flavor, and the pineapple beef was seriously a can of pineapple with about 2 ounces of beef slices.

Prices--This restaurant has no business charging so much for awful food when their restaurant is not in a high rent area and the interior is a dump.

I have been to many vietnamese restaurants during my 10 years in the cities, and this experience was definitely the worst. This place isn't even in the same ballpark as Quang, Hoa Bien, Saigon, Nhan, and so forth.

• Pros: Bread (standard Vietnamese)
• Cons: Restaurant smell/quantity/quality of food/price