Little Saigon

Sadly, this business has closed. I knew the owner and his sister, they just couldn’t keep up with the expenses as the economy went south. Very sad, as I definitely was a big fan of this place.

unfortunately, Jessica C. is right! went tonight, because my wife loves their phở, but it’s gone. bummer! anybody know any other good vietnamese places around?

Just FYI. This place closed down! They are opening an Ozumo’s. Tried to eat there last night after all the Unilocal reviews I read (and was really excited too) and lo and behold, they were gone! So you can scratch this option off your list. Booooo!

I’m nicer on my reviews when my food is free, but this time I“m nice not only coz the food was free and I know the owners (thanks to the boyfriend) but because it was scrumptious! We tried different types of dishes, can’t remember all of them. But yummy! Garlic noodles was awesome-​ness, i think it was clay pot or something like that was good also, and i love love their pot stickers with that special sauce. It was über-​satisfying. French rice i’m kinda not familiar about. Dessert was a nice way to end it even though we were already full.
Place is huge. Service was of course great. We drove here to try their food and it was worth the drive. I will ask the boyfriend to take me there again and I should take my family there too.

Okay food and service. The place was quite empty and wondered if we were missing something here. It’s a gorgeous restaurant in the same shopping center as Trader Joe’s. But where is everyone?
The location isn’t the best place to be when you tend to be at a high-​end restaurant especially when dinner entrees are priced at an average of $ 15 each (family style~ which means you need to order rice to accompany the main dishes). This used to be a Chinese restaurant and with reasonable prices for either dine in or take out. I think the owners should re-​evaluate their menus and price their meals accordingly. I think lunch prices are reasonable, but the dinner menu is a bit pricey for the locals.
The server seemed a bit unexperienced although polite: the dining experience was mediocre and doubt that we will return until other Unilocalers report otherwise.

Came here last Sunday with the ‘rents and was quite pleased. The staff was attentive and friendly. The food was all delicious (highlights were the papaya salad, and the shaking beef), the only thing that didn’t quite rock my world was the peanut sauce that accompanied the spring rolls, it just wasn’t as peanut-​y as I would have liked.
I went in thinking «Oh, I’m not that hungry, I probably won’t eat much» and left thinking, «Damn, I sure did eat a lot!». Thanks for the full belly Little Saigon.

Three stars are from me, the extra thrown in from my Vietnamese co-​worker, who highly recommends this place. I’m always confused by a Vietnamese restaurant that serves dishes other than phở and vermicelli (shows how ignorant I am). The Italian desserts seem very out of place! I’ve been here a few times for lunch. Sometimes I’m so cheap, I’ll order the lunch special, which are items from the regular menu with barely $ 1 discounted. A soup of the day is included. The last one was a sort of veggie-​tomato-​everything but the kitchen sink. It was warming to the tummy at least. Another time I really enjoyed the chicken curry, with potatoes, carrots, and yams in a huge bowl. Three types of rice are offered at no extra charge — white jasmine, French rice, and brown rice. I like the French rice because I haven’t seen it anywhere else. The problem is that the server describes it as «red, since it’s made with tomatoes, like Mexican rice». That’s a huge turn off; if I hear that again, I’m not going to order it. Anyway, this place provides a nice filling meal after a hike on Mt. Diablo. Service is very friendly and fast.

The menu is more extensive and elegant than typical Vietnamese places, which tend to be mostly phở or noodle houses. It is similar to Paradise 33 but much better prices. My favorite dish is a grilled beef and green apple salad. I usally have to go to SF to find food like this.
The location is in a rather dreary strip mall so it is surprising to find food of this caliber here. I hope they can survive because it’s always nice to find little treasures like this out in the hinterlands.
The service can be annoying because the help seems inexperienced, like highschool kids with their first job or first job in a «nice» place, or who’d maybe only worked in diners before. We’ve had waitresses that were annoyingly obtrusive, trying too hard and talking WAY too much. This moderately bothers me but REALLY bothers my father. He happens to live nearby and this is one of my favorite places to go when I visit and I always have to twist his arm to go here because he hates the service.
Cuisine like this is challenging for some suburbanites and can be quite comical to watch. On several occassions I’ve seen parties where a husband may order a huge dish and eat it to himself while his wife (who doesn’t like Vietnamese food?) will sit and watch with a glass of water. Or I’ve seen people who will agonize forever over what to order, thinking that they won’t like this or won’t like that.

My boyfriend and I come here when we want to feel semi-​normal and go out for dinner, but still want to avoid that craziness of downtown. Service is pretty good and it is often pretty slow… hmm, don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, but hey– i like it! Food is good and prices are reasonable and the location is stress-​free in regards to parking and crowds. I usually get the barbequed chicken with rice noodles and spring roll and pickled veggies, yum-​o!

I read an article in the paper about this place when it opened. I saw they offered a whole fried CRAB, so I had to check it out. I was thinking it would be like Crustaceans in SF… but not quite. The whole crab wasn’t great, very expensive and greasy. Garlic noodles were blah. I will probably try this place again, just to try the Phở (I love Phở).

i’m editing my review of this place because i think they are beginning to outgrow their business. what i mean by that is it seems that they don’t have enough help in the restaurant and one of the servers there is so unhappy to be there — i don’t think she’s ever had restaurant training. no stop by to say how’s everything and we waited about 10 minutes for beer (she mumbled that she was trying to get them cool).
about a month ago we went to the restaurant on a friday night — must have been a 2^nd friday or something because it was jazz music and it was loud.
i will say that there are 2 servers there that are super nice — and if’ you’ve been there before you know who i’m talking about.
bummer…
=== +++ ===
my husband and i have been dining here for many months — i’m giving this a 4 because they have great service (always super nice) and they have a vegetarian phở!!! not many places do and their broth is great.
i’m not too crazy about the other menu items — though we always get the spring rolls. my H likes the real phở because the broth is good — but he does state that the «stuff» that goes in the soup is lacking — ie not enough. i’ll have to try the scallops next time — did i mention i am a vegequarian?

Excellent food. Keep in mind, I am not Vietnamese, so I don’t know if it is true to traditional cuisine, but I know I like it. Again, it’s a favorite of the grandma’s (she gets around!) so she’s the reason I started dining there. It is a little on the pricey side, and most of the dishes are a la cart, so it does tend to add up quick. The garlic noodles are a must!!! You are missing everything if you don’t order at lease one side of the glory that is these garlic noodles. I would bathe in them if I could!!!

We usually hit this place for Sunday lunch/​brunch, but we have done dinner here before. I will say that some of the menu items are rather pricey, but then again those tend to be Lobster, Dungenes Crab, and so on.
This is a huge space, an awful lot of room. Décor is simple, white table clothes, muted colors (beige, white, brown). Service is very accommodating. As our dishes arrived we explained that we would be sharing them, family style, as I had neglected to inform them when ordering. This was no problem at all and taken care of quickly, efficiently, and cordially.
Food…MMMMmmmm…Okay, the only issue I had was with the Grilled, Marinated, Chicken Skewers, so let’s dispense with the one flaw. Because the pieces on the skewer were not even sized, the smaller ones tended to be overcooked. Not shoe-​leather tough, but not juicilicious. The Green Papaya, Pineapple, Mango Salad with Beef (this was a special) was fabulous. The flavors melded perfectly, the beef was perfectly cooked, just the right amount of fish sauce, just the right amount of spice and herbs. We were licking the plate when the waitress came to remove it.
Yes they have spring rolls and Phở. We skipped the Phở and had the Beef spring rolls. Again, perfectly cooked beef, still hot and dripping. Again, fine balance of flavor.
The Chicken Curry was good as well. The curry sauce itself was thinner than I prefer but tasty. The chicken and all the veggies were perfectly cooked. This had Yams and Taro in it, which surprised me. Not so much the Yams as the taro.
Portions are healthy – not overlarge, not small. We got out of there stuffed for $ 60.00, but we did drink a lot of wine by the glass.
I find this to be a nice alternative to the Phở & Spring Roll places. Less greasy and less pricey than downtown Walnut Creek’s options.

Wonderfu Vietnamese food. This is far more sophisticated than most other Vietnamese places. The menu is truly varied with big emphasis on seafood. Tamarind Crab (when in season) is to die for. We drive ½ hour to dien here.
Kiem, the son of the owner is the manager and he is only 23 years old but he is learning the art of ownership.

Had dinner last night with my husband at this place. They have completely remodeled the restaurant since this new owner bought it. I really liked the new light fixtures, and the sophisticated updating. Expect clean white table clothes, and black tie waiters. I appreciate this restaurants attempt to be more upscale, however its not located in downtown Walnut Creek and I’m not sure how long it will last with its high aspirations toward an expensive downtown Vietnamese Bistro. The prices are high for their Vietnamese cuisine, some of the entrees are $ 20 and that’s a lot for 1 dish. However I did notice that their lunch specials weren’t as expensive (around $ 7 I think) and being a much better deal I would recommend trying this place for lunch before going there to dinner.
We ordered the crispy eggrolls, which were crispy, meaty and good. They came with a lovely sweet vinegar dipping sauce, which is typical of Vietnamese dining. I would order those again but they weren’t different from the eggrolls I would get at any other Vietnamese place.
We also ordered the combination noodles, which was a rice noodle chow mien, with a rich oyster sauce, broccoli, celery, carrots, beef, chicken, shrimp, and squid. If you don’t like rice noodles they do the same dish with egg noodles as well. I really liked the way they prepared the shrimp and if I go back to this place I will probably get a shrimp dish next time.
Another dish we had with dinner was the grilled Lemon grass pork chop. Lemon grass is a fantastic vegetable used in Asian cooking. It’s green stalks (looks similar to green onion) and has a strong lemon flavor without any of the sourness you would get from a real lemon. At first it appeared that we got 2 large pork chops, however on closer inspection we realized that at least ½ of each pork chop was fat and that each had a large bone in it. The meat portion we did eat was very tasty, but I’m not a fan of all that gristle. Also they only provided us with 1 knife and we each really needed a knife with that dish.
Our last entrée was beef with vegetables. We got perfectly cooked strips of beef (not over done or chewy but just right) in a nice brown sauce, with mushrooms, celery, carrots and more broccoli. I really appreciated the good amount of veggies and sauce in each dish. We both felt very full and satisfied after our meal. With Tip it was about $ 47 for the 2 of us which isn’t that bad, for 3 entrees and appetizer.
The only other thing that we didn’t like was they only offered RC cola, no Pepsi or Coke, and my husband didn’t like the taste of the RC.
Little Saigon is an upscale Vietnamese restaurant. And their food is tasty, but a little on the expensive side, so if you get a craving for Vietnamese come here for a nice lunch and make sure it meets your needs before shelling out for a more expensive dinner. Also noticed some expensive wines on their menu, some as much as $ 44 a bottle.

A rainy, gloomy Saturday evening after a tiring, emotionally draining and melancholy week. As we returned from a brief shopping trip, we were too tired and it was too late to start something for dinner, but our 6 month old was too tired to endure sitting through dinner, so we drove around looking for takeout.
I recalled reading about this place in the paper, and though we’ve never had Vietnamese food before, we were willing. I dropped my wife and son off at home, and my daughters and I went to place and pick up an order.
The place is bright, clean, and the servers appeared very professional. I would definitely feel comfortable returning for a sit-​down dinner here.
So, on to the food itself.
Pork and mango rolls were amazing, clearly the standout of the whole meal, and quite large.
Spring rolls were tasty too, but not as good as the pork and mango (part of the disappointment was that we were expecting crispy Thai-​style spring rolls).
Chicken kabobs (more like a satay than a kebab) were average, and only included 2 small pieces of chicken — this for almost $ 9?
For entrees, we had Shaking Beef, which was tasty but a bit tough. A better quality beef would have helped a lot here.
Crispy scallops were very tasty, but only about 6 scallops were included with this $ 13 entrée, much to my 5 year old’s dismay.
Chicken in coconut milk was very curry-​like, and I wonder if they gave us the wrong thing.
Rice (brown and red) was tasty but tiny portions. Each serving of rice serves at best 1 person. Garlic noodles were indeed garlicky, and the kids loved them.
Overall, the food was tasty and interesting, but given the over $ 70 total of our order, and the relatively small portions, I think my next visit will be during lunchtime.