Saigon Asian Restaurant

bad experience

i made an account here just to write about my horrible experience at this restaurant. so i went there for the first time today and got takeout pho, because i was having a pho craving lol. i asked the owner (presumably) to give me extra broth, but she said it would be extra money???? i always get this at other pho places and no restaurant has ever been cheap enough to charge for extra broth. so she told me it would be for the price of a large pho just for the extra broth, bringing my total from $5.50 to $6.50. being very preoccupied at the time, i just said "OK," thinking in my head the whole time, "WOW THIS LADY IS SOO STINGY...HAVE YOUR LITTLE DOLLAR NOW, BUT I'M NEVER COMING BACK IF YOU'RE GOING TO CHARGE ME $1 FOR EXTRA WATER + MSG." right after i left, i realized that i should've just purchased a large pho, because i would've gotten the same amount of the broth, along with extra solid food and for the same price! not only that, but i found the server very rude. he told me from his counter that my takeout was ready, so I got up from my seat at the other side of the restaurant and walked up next to him. As he was finishing the packaging, he said, " I'll leave it on the counter" as if he couldn't stretch out his arm and hand it to me, keeping in mind that I was literally one foot away... Finally, the food was average. the soup was too sweet for me. i read the review below mine just as i was munching on the bean sprouts... and read that the owner probably reuses them???? that is horrifying, and i'll never return to this place.

Worst vietnamese restaurant in town!

I am really confused with all these good reviews because the food and service is really bad. I am Vietnamese and I have went to almost all Vietnamese restaurants in the GTA. I first came here last year with my sisters and I had their pho. Their pho had no flavour. It thought it was just chicken broth. Their menus and tables are always sticky as well. The servers are also really unfriendly and unprofessional. After this bad experience, I vowed to never come back here again. However, I decided to give this place a try again last week. My sister and I came in and it was really humid and hot in there (they had no A/C on). We were seated by a very young looking server who was not as professional and friendly. Furthermore, there were "I love Pho" t-shirts on the walls which really took away from the atmosphere. They have a terrible vegetarian selection (just basic vegetable, tofu and rice). The food items are what you can simply make at home. After looking at the menu for 20 minutes, we were'nt really amazed by the items they listed (there were no descriptions and lacks images). Due to their food selection, smelly, humid and not well-kept/cleaned environment, we decided to leave and go to another restaurant in the area. We were extremely happy that we left. I feel like this restaurant is targeted towards McMaster students who never tasted REAL and GOOD pho before.

If you are hungry - DON'T EAT HERE! I have been going to this restaurant for years since it opened and the food was always great. Today my wife and I were hungry and stopped in for some Pad Thai. After receiving our plates - HALF the size of what we were used to, I asked the waitress "Is this it?", she looked at me confused and my wife said "The plate portion used to be twice the size, on the oval plates". Thinking we had ordered a snack or appetizer, she told us we were wrong and that it had always been this size and that if we had a problem we could order something else. "Something else", I thought, you are expecting me to order two meals? So I thought - ok, maybe I am not giving this a try, maybe its the same amount of food and its arranged differently...Well, now I am sitting here at home now eating some oatmeal just to fill me up because I was still hungry after eating at Saigon. My wife is having a few snacks. If just our waitress would have said "We have changed our sizes..." OR anything else besides that I was wrong to think they served me other sizes before - I would have accepted that. Isn't eating suppoed to satisfy hunger? You may be thinking I am expecting too much - but I am a pretty slim person feeling quite hungry. BEWARE fans of Saigon, for if you come to eat a meal, you may only be fed a snack.....

This restaurant used to be Holmes Texaco gas...

This restaurant used to be Holmes Texaco gas station! We laugh about this whenever we go here. The food is lovely - I am not a soup person but the pho is full of meat and vegies and is flavourful. The best thing is the salted lemon drink which is lovely on a hot day. The servers keep the tea coming as well. The pork chops are a great meal and the shrimps on snow peas are a delight. My ex is in love with the mango milkshakes. This is a great place to go at any time.

An excellent Vietnamese restaurant for McMaster...

An excellent Vietnamese restaurant for McMaster students. My meal cost $7 to take out and a bit more to dine in (tip). When you dine in they give you free tea which is especially nice on a cold day! This is a staple food for off campus McMaster students and as such you will almost always see students dining in. The girl at the front cash, however, changes like the wind!