Bui Bistro

Service and quality for go order:
Told me to come in 10 minutes and I got their at 15 after, ended up waiting an additional 10 minutes before the dinner rush!
Spent $ 9 on a small half ass phở. This phở did not taste authentic at all. Do not waste your money if you want bomb phở.
I’ve noticed recently moving to napa, their is no culture. So sad.

We love coming to Bui Bistro! Must haves: Imperial Rolls, Prawn fried rice, fried calamari & the shaken beef! All delicious & never disappoints. Patrick, the owner, is very passionate & friendly — he always takes time to talk with us & make sure we enjoy our experience. Highly recommended!

I love this place since they have amazing duck soup. Came here several times and would give them 5 stars but the horrible service. I ordered two large bowls of duck soup for my gf and I, and the guy charged me couple dollars for a side of the veg that usually come with the phở. He has a very very rude attitude. to make things even worse, When Im still looking at the menu he asked me if I would order anything else??? I don’t know if I want to come back here anymore!

Review for Bottlerock music festival food stand…
I’m giving this place three stars because they screwed up initially, but then they made up for it afterwards, so i’m not going to be too harsh. The initial first day at the festival, we went to order their fried shrimp balls and their spicy chicken wings. The prices were a bit high for the shrimp balls at $ 12 for 3 shrimp balls, but it was a music festival so whatever, it wasn’t going to be cheap. The wings were a surprisingly good deal at $ 10 for 8 wings!
We got 2 orders of each and waited for a second and score the food came out quickly! they looked bomb… so we left and we started to dive into the food… the shrimp balls were straight up raw, in the middle! Grosssssss, I’m no prude and I eat raw seafood/​sushi/​poke whatever all the time, but don’t serve a batch of ground up seafood raw to concertgoers, since it wasn’t meant to be served raw that’s just not safe! We went to return it because we weren’t that far away. Apparently we weren’t the only ones that got the raw shrimp, seems like a huge batch went out and tons of people came back to return it, and to their credit, Bui bistro owned up to it and stopped serving the shrimp balls for about 15 minutes or so while they sorted out what was going on in their kitchen and gave people either refunds or let them wait for fully cooked orders. We were about to miss a show so we just got a refund.
The wings however were fully cooked and delicious. My group decided that the shrimp balls had potential and we actually went back the next day to order it again and this time they turned out to be quite good, they just had a hiccup during the service the first day. So now that we had them fully cooked, we did like it.

Its a hidden jewel. Great Vietnamese food in Napa. We ordered spring roll and roasted prawns for appetizers. Wow! The peanut sauce was amazing! The flavor and the texture of the sauce was the best sauce I have had at a restaurant. Each cut of the rolls had a shrimp on it unlike some other places where they skimp on the shrimps. Roasted prawns came with a refreshing lemon sauce. It was fried but not greasy and the lemon made them very refreshing!
For our entrees, I got the combination vermicelli and my sister got the rare steak phở. Omg… the presentation on the vermicelli was really nice. All of the ingredients were prepared and seasoned very well. Except for the overcooked noodles, which I made say can be just my preference, it was amazing. BBQ pork was had great char flavor and not that sweet. Shrimps were cooked perfectly and the size… perfect. The soup had more anise than most of the soups I had recently but it was not overpowering and it was great. I can say that it did not have much MSG since my mouth is not dry and not drinking cups of water as I write this post.
If you have not tried this place yet… please give them a try. you wont regret. If I can I would love to try other dishes during my trip now but if I can’t I know I have a place to go when I come back and visit Napa.

I will start with saying that this place USED to have my favorite curry ever. That has changed after today and I will not be returning. This review is only for the tofu curry as that is the only thing I have had from their menu and Im sure they still have a lot of great things to eat. If you have not tried it, it is (normally) a wonderful yellow coconut curry with a good amount of vegetables and tofu or chicken. I always get it to go as I work nearby and have not had an issue until today.
I was looking forward to it all day as I have a cold and it would have really hit the spot as its normally AMAZING. When I got back to my desk to enjoy it, I opened the bag to find 1. A container half the normal size that is normally given and I was still charged $ 13 for, and 2. The curry was separated and completely watered down like someone had literally poured water into it to fill it up and was (not surprisingly) just as bland as if someone had. I would have went back for a refund but I only have a 30 min lunch and did not have any other food. I hope this was just a fluke and they have a new cook but they lost a customer today.

I had the red curry duck to go. I guess I was expecting something closer to the thai dish, but I didn’t taste much red curry. The sauce was really saturated with a garam masala type curry. Really thick like a curry paste. It was pretty strong. Almost too strong to eat. But they stopped just short of overkill on it. I thought they would have a coconut milk counter part added to the sauce to break up the strong curry paste.
The dish was mostly a large duck leg. It was cooked well but it didn’t have the regular duck flavor I’m used to. It was almost flavorless or closer to just plain chicken. Maybe it was cooked too long. A few veggies added in. Their choice of veggies didn’t fit or make sense. They put okra which is slimey and eggplant. The potatoes and carrots worked. overall it was good. I think they could work on a better sauce for it. I’ll have to try some other dishes next time. Maybe I’ll stick to the usual Phở and rolls for this place. The wait staff were really nice and the interior is nice like a french restaurant — chez chez

The place was a little surprise for my family. It didn’t even disappoint my father who usually only eats Asian food. Everything was good! Would definitely recommend to all friends.

Food is great. Builicious!
Nice ambience. Servers are very polite, accommodating and friendly.
Will come back!

You really can’t go wrong here. I’ve dined here many times and have always left extremely happy. The food is comforting, fresh, and more interesting and elegant than your typical Vietnamese fare. The duck soup special is absolutely divine… I swear, I dream about it sometimes. A duck confit leg in a tantalizingly rich broth, with Chinese broccoli and perfectly cooked egg noodles. The phở is also top-​notch.
It’s always a pleasure to visit Bui Bistro and experience their wonderful food, excellent service, and the warmth of the proprietor, Patrick.

Service, as always, is phenomenal. … I came for their phở which is very tasty. .it’s convenient but in the pricy side..

Good stuff:
Sea bass anything
Viet crêpe
Shaking beef
Duck anything
Patrick — the server extraordinaire
Bad stuff:
No clue, the wine was too good.
Don’t miss this spot!

Fantastic Bahn Mi! I really want to try more items but this is top notch! The wait staff is totally cool and the atmosphere is inviting and sophisticated — yet without the pompous staff you get elsewhere!
Keep it up Bui Bistro! You are a local favorite of mine

Bui Bistro is one of the best spots in Downtown Napa. They offer many different dishes on their menu, but rest assured every one is amazing. From the rare beef phở or combination vermicelli for lunch, to the pan-​seared seabass or shaken beef for dinner, you’ll be happy with whatever you get.
The French-​Vietnamese style cuisine offered here is unique to any other Asian inspired restaurant you can find downtown.

I had a terrible experience here. With no one in the restaurant, we still waited an hour and a half for our food. Despite being patient, every server ignored us then apologized because they forgot our order. The food was boring and forgetful, definitely not worth the ridiculous wait. Go across the street to Mango on Main for a better experience.

I like to start with the Saigon wings. Super crispy and delicious. Then phở tai, rare beef. They also make a delicious phở ga, and the shrimp soup is spectacular!
Only downside is that phở is not available at night.

Food was delicious (shaken beef was so tender and flavorful), although the menu seemed a bit limited.
Service was glacial: slow and cold. The waiter was unavailable for long periods of time. Every time he was at the table right next to ours, he kept his back to us, eliminating any possibility of making eye contact, and rushed off – frustrating for us and inefficient for him. Eventually I had to ask the person behind the bar if he could find our waiter so we could pay the check and leave. No business should ever make it difficult for a customer to pay them!
There was a waitress – seemed like second in command somehow because she didn’t take the orders but instead followed up by bringing some of the food to our table – who was warm and helpful. Her helpfulness somewhat made up for the waiter’s inattentiveness. If it weren’t for her, we wouldn’t have had anything to drink, nor would we have seen a single smile from staff.

I visited Bui Bistro again when I was in Napa a week ago. Food was on point! I had spring rolls and banana flower salad to start, and their shaken beef for my entrée. The spring rolls had a nice crunch while the banana salad was so refreshing and had a wonderful tangy flavor. Not to mention the presentation, which was quite impressive! The shaken beef was just as good as I last remember, pan seared fillet mignon with a lime salt and pepper dip.
Desert is my favorite part of any meal. I had the crème brûlée and tiramisu. The crème brûlée had a delicious, creamy custard, and perfectly brittle sugar crust. The tiramisu was delicious. Enough said.
Can’t wait to go back.

I just wanted to say thanks to Kelly our server for the AWSOME service. She saw me and my girlfriend did not have complete 5 star all around service (not her fault) the last time we were in. so she reached out to me apologizing for it and she wanted us to come back and make sure our next visit was a 5 star visit and it was defiantly a better experience as we got seated immediately.(which was the biggest problem the last time) the food was just as amazing as the first time and I will defiantly be coming back very often and will recommend this place to a lot of people.
Thanks again to Kelly, you did a great job.

Fusion restaurants are hit or miss for me, especially when combining some pretty bold styles in one menu but Bui works for me. Maybe I’m just a sucker for a huge bowl of Phô or maybe this fusion of french and Vietnamese food is genuinely a good mix.
The restaurant is simple and inviting, the décor isn’t fancy or flashy. The service was slow considering we were the only people there when we ordered. It took about 40 minutes for our soup to arrive which seemed odd. The waiter I had seemed very inexperienced, although he was friendly and personable. I had to ask for my water twice on a day when there was only two other tables being served. My salad got forgotten and I took it to go because it never came out with the food. Food service was very slow and we waited for change for 15 minutes even though we were the only ones there by the time we left.
The menu has a good variety of things to choose from and I had a hard time choosing just a few things because they all sounded good. I started with the duck rolls for an appetizer which were very good. The vegetables were fresh and the duck was succulent and flavorful. I ordered the rare beef phô which was a good decision considering I’d been craving it since we moved to Napa. The green papaya salad was just inedible. Not only was it forgotten and I took it to go but it was NOT spicy, way too salty and just didn’t taste fresh. I took two bites and tossed it.
I gave it a four star because I did like the appetizer and the phô and would return for those and to try some new things. The staff needs some help as far as being attentive to the customers and knowing their menu items to really deserve the 4+ rating.