Pho Bistro

Got their sandwich and drink special for a total of $ 8 (incl tax). I chose the Banh Mi Bo (Beef Sandwich) with Almond milk tea (no boba). The sandwich was about 6″ long, heavy on the mayonnaise and barely had any of the traditional pickled vegetables (instead had a lot of lettuce and tomato) but the beef was very flavorful and delicious. For the price, I will definitely go back to try their chicken and pork sandwiches. The milk tea was medium sized and tasted fine but I wouldn’t purposely make the trip just for the drink.

Love their ramen. Seems like such a simple meal to get but I love it and get it every time. Very nice people work there.

Phở Bistro is pretty good for phở being available in the IV area. The only thing that I would really have to say here is that the food is slightly overpriced for my liking. Also, I feel like every time I ask for no cilantro in my phở, they don’t deliver my requests. Depending on what time you come here, it may be really rowdy due to the crowds outside, but aside from that, the food comes out fairly quickly, which I can always appreciate. I would recommend Phở Bistro to anyone who enjoys Vietnamese food!

Rare Vietnamese place in Santa Barbara that is good for vegetarians. The vegetarian phở was great! Thanks!

Thought I would give IV phở a try myself after hearing all the horrible things about it, and most definitely those things are true. The Vietnamese coffee is horrible, straight horrible. I was hoping for some authentic Vietnamese food, but I was very disappointed.
The staff however are very nice. Restaurant itself is very small.

Love phở bistro!!! Great food! Been going here for years and it just keeps getting better.

This is awesome!!! I go to this spot every week. The Bön bu hue is so great!!! I love it !!!

Phở Bistro was easy to find and seating was pretty easy. The inside is small except there are outside seats as well. I would say sitting outside would be nicer, so you could watch the IV hustle and bustle.
Phở Bistro has ALOT of different drinks! I’m tempted to try some but then I heard that basically all their drinks are 4.95! That’s a little too expensive for my tastes, especially as a broke college student. Guess I’ll have to try them next time! Seems like you can pretty much mix anything with whatever tea you want, or make it into an icy or smoothie.
My friends and I ordered egg rolls to share. They were decent, don’t really know what else to say about it. Was definitely not the best I’ve had from a phở restaurant though.
I always phở with rare steak. Phở Bistro doesn’t give that many pieces of steak… about 6 pieces. Maybe it’s because back home, most of the Phở places I went to always gave more steak if it was the only meat I ordered. And especially because Phở Bistro is EXPENSIVE! $ 9.25 for my bowl of phở with 6 pieces of steak!!! I’m a broke college student! The soup did not taste bad, it was pretty decent though.
Have nothing else to say about it actually except that if it was cheaper, I would definitely be coming back! Next time, I’ll probably try a different phở place… hopefully they give me some more meat for the price I pay!

Hey guys LISTEN UP. I worked at this Phở place for about 5 months or so. It’s definitely not the cleanest restaurant and the food is alright but I do recommend a few dishes that I think are actually really good. The fried rice is definitely good. Just the shrimp one though cause I think the other meats used in the the fried rice are bland. THE PEPPER CHICKEN WINGS ARE BOMB. Sure its a little pricey but its reallyyyy good. The chowfun is bomb too btw so get that. The eggrolls are decent and so are the spring rolls. The drinks are good when I MAKE THEM FOR SURE. I got that ingredient ratio on point my friends. I actually ate here a lot even though I worked here because I love phở and it was the only decent phở place in the area besides Noodle City. Also 50% off so woohooo. When I first came here I thought it was like really bad phở but then I got used to it and I think it started tasting better and better LOLLL. Obviously its not the best phở around but its decent and id still eat here like 3 times a week cause thats how much I love phở.

When I have Asian food cravings this is the only place nearby that will satisfy them. I always get the vegetarian phở and its usually great. One time the soup was too salty and sometimes the veggies aren’t too fresh, but the service is great and the taste is usually on point.

I got the grilled pork plate and it was delicious. Slightly overpriced, but so are most things in IV. The portion is large and the meat is super tasty. I also got peach green tea with boba and lychee jelly, which was the best boba I’ve had in IV so far. I would recommend this place for your Vietnamese cravings!

The store is quite small. There isn’t really any décor, just numerous pictures of colorful smoothies and other drinks. The chairs and tables don’t match nor are they uniform throughout. So this is a place definitely for just eating and not for enjoying the ambiance. You can eat outside, it is cooler and you can avoid the sound of the blender, but it can be quite loud and cramped depending on amount of people passing by on the street.
We decided to sit inside and took a look at the menu. At first glance, we noticed that they had a lot of drinks because the first four pages were dedicated to the different drinks. We also noticed that the prices for each dish are quite high, $ 8 dishes were the cheapest, with most dishes being around $ 10. Our server wasn’t mean and she checked up on us frequently, so we didn’t have problems with service even though the restaurant was getting packed at 8 PM.
J got phở tai and I got egg roll vermicelli. The food was quickly served. The portion seemed smaller than most places for the price. We double checked our bowls for bugs because of the Unilocal reviews before we started eating. His phở tai tasted average but my vermicelli bowl was super bland! I used all the fish sauce but there was barely any flavor. The egg rolls were crispy but I couldn’t finish the rest of my meal.
Overall, I do not think I will be returning for the food. However, I might stop by again but only to try their drinks.

Came here strictly for the boba drinks.
I was tired of the super sweetness of Hana Kitchen’s drinks and the slow service at Naan Stop, so I decided to try Phở Bistro for their boba. They have such a wide selection of drinks but I always judge a boba place based on my go to flavor — taro milk tea with boba.
Ordered and got my drink within five minutes. Overall, it was very good by IV standards! Taro milk tea was okay, not much special. The boba was great! Sweet and was a great consistency. Four stars because it wasn’t terrible and I have a new place to get decent boba in an otherwise boba-​less town. Will be back more often!

I come here often out of desperation for some Asian food but if you can, I suggest you go to Noodle City or Pattaya.
Don’t Togo. You’ll get more dining in.
Food is overpriced and check the bill often before paying. Don’t buy the drinks unless it’s Thai tea. You’ll just be paying a lot for disappointment. Chow fun dishes are no fun. Phở is decent. Pad Thai is eh.
Service is nice by the student workers but not from the owner.

The food here is okay, and the boba and drinks are pretty good, but to be honest, I don’t think I’ll be coming here again.
I’ve been here a few times and I’ve known for a while that the service is not great. But I decided to keep coming back because its the only place that serves phở in IV. The last time I came here, however, I found a HUGE bug in my vegetable/​toppings bag in my to go order! Good thing I double checked to make sure the food was right! But when I went back inside to ask for a refund, they would only refund me for the phở, not the entire meal.
I was very disappointed, in many aspects, and am sad to say I will not be coming back:/

At least 90% of phở places throughout SoCal are likely better than Phở Bistro. In hindsight, every time I ate here I thought it would have been better eating nearly anywhere else in IV. The phở soup is terrible:
— the broth lacks any dimension
— the sprout and veggie toppings are lacking and not fresh
— the meat is skimpy in portion too
— the meat choices are limited, with mostly a few types of tough meat as your only options. If you like less common cuts of meat like tripe and tendons you are out of luck here. The meatballs are the most flavorful option available.
As a UCSB student, I ate here a couple times out of desperation for phở, and I can now happily say I will never dine here again.
One recent night I was craving phở and Phở Bistro was the only place still open in town, so I went on in. A waitress asked my party if we would like to dine in or order take out. We chose the latter and were promptly seated.
The same waitress came around again about five minutes later and asked if we knew what we wanted to order. I asked for a few more minutes, and eventually we placed our orders. Well, the girl came back from the kitchen asking if we minded ordering take out.
If you haven’t tried it, to-​go phở, in particular, is not very palatable, especially in large styrofoam cups. This place closed early and led us into thinking we could dine in. Being led on like this was very upsetting. This misleading service on top of terrible phở is why I’ll never go back.

I ordered the pineapple friend rice. It was yellow rice with chunks of cold canned pineapple in it. Quite disgusting, I couldn’t even finish half and did not even think about taking the rest to go.
Unfortunately what was worse than the food was the service. As we were waiting for our food, some guy DRIPPING WET in a wetsuit, with dirty BARE FEET stumbles in to the place. He knows the people working there so he talks with them super loud right next to where we were sitting. I didn’t think much of it, until he starts walking around in the kitchen and behind the counter. Turns out he works there too. And before we know it this guy that is still soaking wet gives us our food. If it is not your day to work, don’t serve people their food, especially when you just got done surfing and haven’t even had time to cover up your sandy bare feet.

Strolled here desperate for phở because Noodle City was closed. We asked if they were still open and yes they were. We were seated and after mulling over the menu settled on some orders of Phở.
But then… waitress comes back from kitchen and is like «would you mind taking this to go?». Wtf hell nah. I was already settling on your lame phở and now you want me to take it to go? Nah
I hope they made it to the party they were talking about because I went that Friday night without a bowl of phở.
Avoid.

I don’t know how to gently ease this review into discussing the worm that was casually floating in my phở so… that’s that.
I’m usually more forgiving except for the fact that my meal wasn’t comped and instead I was given a discount. Its not about the $$, its about the principle.
Also, this particular creature was especially hideous.
Just to clarify, the worm was found in the broth and not in the plate of basil and sprouts brought out separately from the phở.
The server, Daniel, was great and he was equally if not more grossed out by the worm. However, the owner felt differently.
I’ve attached a photo of the worm so ya’ll could feel my pain. RIP.

New owner, things have changed. Drink menu has grown. Haven’t tried many. I personally think the Thai Iced Tea is no longer the same. However, the Vietnamese Iced Coffee is pretty good. Sadly, last time I ordered boba it was too mushy. It was near closing time, I don’t know if that had anything to do with it.
There’s a menu insert with newer items, I would skip it. Maybe some of the items are worth a shot but I’m too scared to try now. One night I ordered the Chicken Pan Fried noodle to go and, to my despair, it was not what I expected. I don’t know what happened, in my mind the dish looked different, even the picture on the menu was different. I even wondered if it was a mistake. Imagine crispy deep fried noodles like the ones you put on top of a Chinese chicken salad drenched in a sauce with barely any chicken. Not the most pleasant experience.
For now, I’m sticking to the egg rolls, Bánh Mi sandwiches, Rice dishes, Bún bowls, and Iced Coffee. I wish the broth was tastier… don’t usually buy Phở here unless I’m craving a hot bowl of soup. I genuinely enjoy Vietnamese cuisine and crave it often, but some menu items here are a miss. I really like those places where the menu is small, but you know everything tastes amazing. This place has variety, but most dishes are mediocre. Alas!!! I still come here. It’s conveniently near campus and sometimes you need some egg rolls to get you through finals, right? ;-)