Pho Ca Dao

After driving 5 hours we finally got to Dallas around 1 am on a Sunday night and then realized every Vietnamese restaurant was closed.
After looking around we ran into this place and saw «live crawfish» and we love crawfish! We called and he said they ran out and that they were closing but let he was nice and let us order food to go. (Better than nothing)
We ordered shrimp fried rice, bo Luc lac (shaking beef) and canh chua (hot and sour soup) The fried rice was okay, bo Luc lac was too sweet and came with about 7 pieces, and canh chua was pretty good. Wasn’t the best food but we got full so can’t complain. The bill was about $ 40.

There seems to be a trend here… even a year later!
I went to Boiling Crab on a Sunday night across the street at 9pm which is 30 minutes before closing and there was still a wait! What in the world? Walk out and across the street you’ll see a big banner «LIVE CRAWFISH»
It’s a Vietnamese restaurant and I know Asians do their crawfish right. I prefer «Asian style» over «Cajun style» because Asians will cook their crawfish in a broth with oranges, garlic, and yummy o butter. I know I know… artery clogging but OH SO GOOD!!!
Well, little did we know but on Sunday’s, its karaōke night? In the back, there’s a karaōke section and the front is the regular dining area. I don’t mind live karaoking but my goodness! They had that volume turned up so high, my friends and I couldn’t have a normal conversation without yelling at each other! Even when we were talking as loud as possible, we could barely hear each other. We would need to quickly say what we wanted to say in between songs. When someone was singing, we would just look at each other because there was no point in having a conversation when we couldn’t hear each other.
I would have to say service isn’t that great either. Our waitress was a young girl who was soooooooo clueless. When we gave her our order, we couldn’t tell if she was confused and was writing it down right. We were fully expecting our order to come out wrong but thank goodness, it was right!
Crawfish was delicious. I came early in the season so they weren’t humongous but a good size. I could tell they were fresh too. It was just as good as Boiling Crab’s if not even better. Really really enjoyed it.
I will definitely come back for the crawfish but maybe on a night where its a bit quieter.

Don’t come here. The service is the worst I’ve ever experienced and witnessed. I say witnessed because of the table next to me:
Man: Everyone else has their food, are they still going to give me the crawfish I ordered?
Waitress: *blank look into space*…Yes, it’s still boiling. It’s fresh, that’s why.
Man: But if it’s fresh, it doesn’t take THIS long to cook.
Waitress: *blank look into space*…*walks away*
LOL really? That just verifies the fact that other reviewers are right. It’s not fresh, probably frozen.
The young man working there was handing out our dishes and he was holding a bowl of BBH. I’m Filipino and even I KNOW what that dish was lol. He held it and said «here’s the… um…um…» *frustrated, confused look* …we just took it from him. Like dude… you work here how do you not know what you’re serving?
We only came here because we were starving and it was across from boiling crab. We had to eat something while we waited for our turn.
It took our food a little over an hour to get to the table. And it wasn’t busy. When I say it wasn’t busy I really mean that. I don’t know what’s with this place and I don’t wish it upon any business owner for their doors to be closed for good, but this place needs to if they aren’t willing to put in just a little more effort into making it a better place.
I think no matter how small a restaurant is, or «how off-​the-​radar» it is in the restaurant business, they should still try to give the best service they can. Every major restaurant started somewhere and I’m sure as hell it didn’t start off this way.
Oh and the food…2 out of 5 stars. I got the grilled pork/​broken rice platter and it was actually really good. Everyone else got Phở and BBH and they said it wasn’t good at all and yes they’re all Vietnamese so it comes from a trustworthy opinion lol.

Like everyone else, we waited in line for Boiling Crab and it was too long so we came here.
We ordered about ten pounds and they gae us two for free. Buy five get one free deal. The crawfish wasnt Boiling crab crawfish but they were still pretty good. Our crawfish tasted fresh and some were big. There were a couple of dead ones but can’t expect them all to be live being squished up in a bag… I didnt have any complaint! I thougth it was good. We got the medieval spicy, medium.
another plus, its BYOB. They do charge a fee but they provide you with ice bucket.

Their «live» crawfish is actually frozen. The raw oysters were gross. And definitely don’t get the fried rice — it’s greasy and bland.

We decided to give this place a try since they were newly advertising crawfish and the wait at The Boiling Crab (across the street) was around 2+ hours. It was around 4 or 5 P.M. on a Sunday; the restaurant was pretty empty and smelled heavily of cigarette smoke. We thought since they weren’t busy, we would get our food quickly but it was quite a long wait. (We ordered 4 lbs. of crawfish.) We paid extra to have sausages and potatoes added, and they were pretty skimpy giving us a few thin slivers of sausages and some undercooked (still hard) potatoes. I asked for some crawfish seasoning/​powder to dip my crawfish and the waitress didn’t bring it until we were done w/​the crawfish. I didn’t understand why the service was so slow when there were only about 4 occupied tables in the whole restaurant. The crawfish was okay, but nothing to make you come back. I’m pretty sure I will not be returning.

If I didn’t have to give them a star, there wouldn’t be one. Entered the restaurant and it smelled. Terrible.
My mom and I wanted crawfish so we tried here since my friend said it was good. Sorry, but it was a total lost. Most if the crawfish was dead, no taste and rubbery. All we ordered was 5 lbs of crawfish, fries, wings and two drinks. The only thing that was good was the fries and my coconut drink. Which you can’t go wrong with because it comes in a can. My mom had Che Ba Mau and it wasn’t even good. We were there for about an hour and the wings wasn’t even done yet. Well first, it wasn’t fully cooked so we asked them to refry it. We finished our crawfish and drinks, still no wings. How long does it take to fry 6 wings? Wing stop fries 40+ in 15 – 20 mins!
Service was terrible also. The lady who took our order kept looking at the menu to see what we ordered and didn’t even write down what we wanted. 50 $ for food that wasn’t even filling? Yeah, we’re never returning here. Especially after they charged us for the wings that we didn’t even eat.

They added crawfish recently. if you like spicy, you gotta love the hellfire flavor!
The atmosphere definitely makes you feel as if you are in Vietnam which is good.

Alright. I will admit yes the restaurant isn’t the most ascetically pleasing places however, the food is good and service is prompt. The fried egg rolls are equivalent to the ones at Bistro B. It is very smokey but with it also being BYOB so I’m definitely and fan and will continue to be for the future.

me and my family were in the area and decided to stop at this place for lunch. The first bad sign was that the place was empty that is never a good sign. so we walk in sit down and a young boy brings up menus, he really didnt seem like he knew much English or maybe he was just shy and quiet. The table was kinda dirty and he came and cleaned it for us. The food on the menu didnt look that good and some stuff we wanted they didnt even have, what kind of restarant dosent have whats on the menu? Anyway we made a bad choice to come here and it was not a really good experience.

Good place for Phở. I’ve been going here for years.

People that gave it bad reviews don’t realize that this is a «quan nhau» karaōke hangout so yes, it’s smoky, loud and crazy. They have amazing «nhau» dishes (try the oversized snails or the eel lau which is soup). Reminds me of the places over in California! Totally recommended for big groups because its BYOB.

We drove 25 miles to this place because there is a Phở Ca Dao in San Diego that is the best! They are obviously not the same chain! We pulled up & there was one car in the parking lot, that should have been the first sign. The grilled pork spring rolls consisted of iceberg lettuce shredded carrots & some kind of pork that was a lot like spam. The absolute worst spring rolls ever! The Phở actually tasted okay but the soft tendon was yellow so I was told that means it’s over cooked. The worst part of the whole place is how filthy it is. All the utensils had a sticky film on them, so we guessed it was from all the cigarette smoke because there were ash trays on every table or the vent system because all the vents & blinds were brown. The sink in the bathroom was clogged & there was no soap! EWWW!!! All I can say is NEVER AGAIN!

Horrible food, Horrible Experience.
French C, pretty much said it all. It was so smokey in there, I could hardly see in front of me. It was dirty, the waitress had an attitude, and the food was nasty. I can handle karaōke but it was so loud that my ears were ringing after we left. They need to choose between a karaōke bar or a restaurant because it’s just not working together.
When I got home, I was still hungry and felt like I needed to shower off all the smoke.
NEVER returning!

Asian karaōke sports bar with an asian menu for dinner /​lunch. Service was «mom and pop shop» friendly. Phở menu was complete, food was average and did I mention BYOB night. Loud locals gambling and inconsiderate employees smoking in a non-​smoking section wasn’t exactly what I was looking for in a vietnamese restaurant.