La Petite Camille

My family loves this place especially my younger siblings and my mum. La Petite was the first viet restaurant my family went to since moving to millbrae in 05 and we still continue to eat here or order takeout occasionally especially on weekends.
The one thing my mom would always rave about this place is their imperial roll appetizer that comes with lettuce, cold noodles, and the fish sauce. It’s crispy, delicious, and full of flavors especially wrapped with the lettuce and noodles then dipped in the sauce ! Yum!
I’ve always been a repetitive kind of eater where I would order the same exact item/​items at certain restaurants if I like it that I seldom try other stuff unless the bf makes me try it or I’m feeling spontaneous. Idk why. So for lunch time at la petite, I’ve always gotten the #2 lunch comb which consists of five spice chicken with side of rice, an imperial roll, salad and their catfish sweet and sour soup (my ultimate favorite!!!) The soup is seriously the best !! It contains bean sprouts which I HATE eating besides in this soup cause it tastes so good that I actually tolerate the bean sprouts, as weird as it sounds :| but i just love it.
It can get pretty busy and noisy here during lunch hours and on weekends hence the takeouts. But when we do dine in, the owner which is a friendly and bubbly viet guy, would always come by our table and ask how my family’s doing etc.
Restaurant is big and can fit big parties as well as small. Staff are always on the move so it’ll never take long for them to get stuff and the food comes out pretty quick.

The food here is wonderful! They do have a small parking lot attached which is much easier compare to other restaurants located in the middle of Millbrae where the city is now packed with people! We eat here 1 – 2 times a week.

I had time to kill before my flight so I opted to eat around the area. My friend recommended a phở restaurant in Millbrae but they are closed on Tuesdays and I was leaving on a Tuesday. La Petite Camille was his second recommendation so I decided to dine here. I came around 10:45am and was the first person in the restaurant. Their private parking lot was empty so parking was easy.
The restaurant has ample seating and I was immediately greeted. My server brought over hot tea and a menu right away. He didn’t leave me and was hovering over me while I was trying to decide what to order. I didn’t care for his hovering much and decided quickly on the Bun Bo Hue. While waiting for my bowl of soup, I could hear the staff all talking in Chinese (Cantonese) and swearing in Chinese which I thought wasn’t very professional or appropriate.
Obviously I didn’t say anything since I didn’t get my food yet. It took awhile but I did get it with my veggies. I didn’t get the normal veggies that come with Bun Bo Hue but that’s ok. It was less veggies than I’m used to as well. The soup was better than I expected but I feel like it there was a ton of MSG in it. I left very thirsty and my tongue had a weird numb feeling after. There was a good mix of beef and noodles in the bowl as a plus. I’ll just make sure that my future departures from SFO won’t be on a Tuesday.

I was in need of phở and one of my stand by places in San Mateo is closed for dinner on Monday’s. Since this was convenient right off El Camino Read AND has a parking lot, I decided to come in. Like others have stated, phở is not their specialty. They can do phở; it’s pretty good but not much selection. Think of them more as Vietnamese cuisine.
Overall, great if everyone in your party has a different Vietamese desire and doesn’t just want phở. Service is friendly and pretty fast.

This place is good. I normally select the noodle soup with pork chops for lunch. Can’t beat that $ 9 meal (not on the menu). Also the owner is extremely friendly. There’s Ben Tre across the street too, but my husband and I like this place better in terms of food and taste. Their lunch combo is great with a bowl of Viet Sweet and Sour soup with a decent prawn on top.

This is my go-​to Vietnamese meal when I need a bite in Millbrae. The parking is easy and the service is really good. There have been times that I’ve been in and out from ordering to take out in under 5 minutes.
As for the food, I love the imperial rolls. Those are divine with the special sauce. Everything else is also great and their portions are decent. Price wise, it’s decent and nothing is outrageous.
I whole heartedly recommend this place.

1^st time there and I was thoroughly impressed. Fast service. Fresh food. Always filled my tea, never had to wait. Five spice chicken was perfect. BBQ pork rice noodles tasty! Very clean. Overall A+ experience.

I love everything about this place. I know the owner now, he a very nice guy. Everything is so detailed with him. He’s got to be perfect. All his stuff are fresh and uniquely picked. There’s only one thing I can say is that everything on his menu is good. You’ll never go wrong. Plus, his place is the cleanest place I’ve ever been to. You can tell when you get there. It’s squeaky clean.

This is one of my go to places for phở in Millbrae. It’s either here or Hoa Ky.
There is a private parking lot for this place so you don’t have to walk across El Camino.
The service is great, always welcoming and willing to recommend dishes.
I usually get their vermicelli with imperial rolls and BBQ pork or phở special (which has like everything in it)
My family also likes to get their appetizer platter and make our own rolls containing shrimp, fish cake, BBQ pork, vermicelli, and veggies.
Great weekday place!

It’s one of those places that makes me ask myself, ‘how are they still in business?’
The service is typically on par with the ‘hospitality’ you’d find in SF Chinatown, at best, and it can also certainly have more elbow room.
The young slender server with the mannerisms and attention span of a spin class teacher on meth is about as pleasant as inbound rush hour traffic into SF… and then we (as in, my family) remember…
that the food is surprisingly good in that it’s fresh, not substantially toned down to fit weak ass westernised palettes and remarkably tasty for a place that seems like it’d be overlooked by all the other neon lit restaurants in the area seemingly hell bent on capturing one’s attention.
They’ve NEVER been known for their service (well, maybe for how lousy it can be at times) but their food, especially their catfish & eggplant dishes, stands out, even with that pretty sizable menu (5 – 6 pages).

I do not know what happened to this place but me and the bf used to love going to this place all the time. I also remember the chubby server who always joked with us but he seems to be gone now. Also for a period of time, the owner (I assume it’s the tan gentleman in the polo who always stands by the cash register) went on vacation and the quality went down. We took a hiatus from the place and decided to get some take out after a late night. This was one of the few places that open until 10:30! Everywhere else closes by 9pm –_​_​–
Anyways, my bf orders his usual special beef combo and special indeed… he only ate half the bowl and mid session, he got the runs!!! We both literally ate the same things the whole day so this was the only thing different… I actually got bun rieu cuz I felt sea-​foody that night and thank god I did… otherwise, we’d be fighting for the toilet! Could you imagine that??? A straight scene from Bridesmaids… except our bathroom aint that big nor as nice… :P
Anyhow, whatever they’re doing now needs change… I didn’t pick up the order but BF did mention the owner wasn’t there that night… so… maybe that’s it? No clue and not sure if we’ll be back for a while… yikes :$

One of the young male waiter here is completely rude and disrespectful. He has no manners when he talks to customers, he practically yells at you. He gave me an attitude when I asked him a question about the menu and his snarky response didn’t even answer my question. Someone had called to make a pick-​up order and he yelled «What do you want?!» Just terrible.

With Ben Tre across the street, it’s hard to want to come here for the same dishes with less portions and higher prices. However, there are some novelties, such as making your own summer rolls by dipping the rice paper in water and wrapping them with ingredients yourself.
Service is ok. Parking is ample on the street or nearby lots. That said, it’s usually empty when there are so many more nearby options that match people’s taste buds and wallet.

Really hits the spot when you’ve just landed in SFO after a long flight and are suffering from the stomach bug. Their soupy phở calms the stomach and soothes the soul. Never a long wait and quick service. Also conveniently located near the Millbrae Bart station.

I was with my girlfriend and we were in a rush to get to a friend’s house on new year’s eve. We were 15 minutes away from the restaurant and asked if we could order on the phone so they could have the food ready for us by the time we got there, because we didn’t want to eat take-​out phở. (Who does, right?)
As soon as we got there, they asked us our name, and promptly sat us down and brought out the food they kept heated for us! The table even already had the condiments (bean sprouts and basil leaves) on it. The staff was very forgiving for our rush and handled it professionally. We paid promptly as well. The phở was great too. (I don’t say this lightly, I’m a phở fanatic, but this review’s already so long) The soup is perfect, the noodles are well done, the meat is delicious, and the atmosphere is very homely and cozy.

This place seems very chill, every day vietnamese food (as opposed to a fancier menu)!
Food was okay, not too bad. I mean again I think it’s just every day casual food that you go in and out for.

Chinese operated Vietnamese restaurant — kind of the best of both worlds? Kind of surprised us when the waiter spoke Cantonese to us right off the bat though.
The food is comparable to most Vietnamese restaurants and it comes on dishes the size of your average entrée at a Chinese dinner. Value is almost otherworldly for some of the dishes!
Our favorite of the night was the 5-​spice chicken. It was prepared perfectly and the pieces were incredibly moist and juicy. Runner up were the charbroiled pork chops. Again, great value, but we found some of our pieces to be very tough because of the tendon. Our least favorite dish was the seafood combo. It featured maybe a couple medium prawns mixed with a couple pieces of calamari (frozen variety) in a LARGE bed of sauteed string beans (not advertised). We opted to temper these plates out with the clay pot rice and spring rolls. The spring rolls were delicious! And the clay pot rice was also pretty good — but could have done without the little slivers of ginger as tastebud surprises.
All in all, good value. Our meal came out to $ 63 and we had ample leftovers.

This place is pretty neat!
The place is open even very late at night, after all the places around the area have closed. We got the special combo phở, and also the vietnamese rice rolls. The rice rolls were HUGE. I had trouble eating them, especially with the giant lettuce pieces sticking out :) The portions here are definitely worth it.
The food quality is great as well. The rice rolls came with a special home-​made peanut butter sauce that was very flavorful – we actually finished the entire bowl. Rice rolls also had a lot of ingredients inside, especially the large pieces of shrimp.
The interior of the place is also very big, and bright. Lots of room for seats. The wait staff are also very friendly, refilling our water glasses promptly, and the food came quickly.
Overall, a really good place for food!

So I came here to meet with family friends when I was out in the bay area. I really thought to myself that this place was going to be super expensive and the food would just be OK, but not great. I was pretty surprised to find out that the dishes are priced very fairly here and most of the stuff here is decent — alebit a bit sweet.
FOOD
BBQ Pork — nothing special here. I would stick with the beef versions of either this or the lemon grass beef. The pork tasted very «gamey» as mentioned above and most of our party did not finish this dish nor did they enjoy it very much
Pad Thai — a bit on the bland side, doesn’t taste like authentic pad thai but I guess this would suffice as OK for it being in the bay area
Lemon Grass Beef — really good flavor here. To me, it tastes sweeter and a bit more «americanized» to me than most of the other vietnamese places i’ve been to in So Cal. It definitely tasted better than the BBQ pork which had a weird «gamey» flavor to it
Imperial Rolls — by far my FAVORITE dish here. Something about their spring rolls is just very special… so special that I ended up eating about more than my fair share of the imperial rolls that we ordered. Don’t forget to wrap it with the green leaf lettuce they give you! Their dipping sauce is excellent!
Five Spice Chicken — another great dish! They prepare it in a clay pot and it has VERY good flavor but make sure to eat it with rice or noodles because it does have a very strong taste. I don’t know how to describe it but it’s basically five different spices they put in a clay pot with the chicken and then cook it. If you like a sweeter chicken dish then this is a good choice!
Fried Banana w/​Ice Cream (Mango) — really good. but i wish they cut the banana because it’s just a whole banana that has been fried. The ice cream that comes with it is also very delicious!
Crème Brulee — very very eggy. if you like eggy crème brûlée then maybe you will enjoy it. but i did not.
SERVICE
Very good service here. They constantly came by to ask us how our dishes were and also topped off our water every 10 or so minutes.

The restaurant offers nice selection of great authentic dishes. I have had dinner at La Petite Camille many times over the past several years and I have never had a bad meal. The food is always fresh and hot. Their noodle soup and rice plates are delicious and quite filling. The portions are plentiful. All the dishes are fairly priced. The service has always been adequate. The interior is very simple and home style. Always packed for dinner but we were seated quickly, and food arrived in a timely manner. There is plenty of street parking out front and ample parking in their side lot. Whenever I am in the Millbrae area, I make it a point to have dinner here. If you want delicious authentic Vietnamese food stop here!