Doyer’s Vietnamese

Doyers may be gone, but the memories remain.
To the owners, waiters, staff and most of all the chefs, Thank you. You are missed terribly by myself and many others. Chinatown is not the same with you gone, and that crooked little Street will always remind me of the times I’ve been there, and I now wish I had discovered you earlier, and went more often.
Doyers had the best Vietnamese food I have ever had. It was down a flight of stairs behind a stainless steel and glass door from the fifties, the décor was simple light colored linoleum, there were colorful pictures of Vietnam on the walls. The staff was always warm and friendly, the meals were flavorful and oh so inexpensive.
This was by far the best of Chinatown which is slowly going away, a New York City landmark now gone but still remembered, I truly hope that Unilocal keeps this page up as a testament.

Excellent Vietnamese and Chinese cuisine. I love the owners here. Their cooking is fresh and yummy.
Try the veggie spring rolls or the Bi Cuon Chay (one of my favorites). The Hu Tieu Chay is also excellent.

I love Doyers. You’ll never find it if you’re not looking for it, but it has been consistently good and reliable for years– and sooo cheap!
My sister adores the vegetables with crispy noodles, and I usually order the curry eggplant with stringbeans and tofu. The Buddhist rolls are always good, as are the spring rolls and the fried banana dessert. Actually, I have yet to try anything here that is not tasty and fresh.
The «Special» menu, so far as I can tell, has not changed in years :)

Generally speaking from no prior experience of eating here, I can already say that I have absolutely no desire to eat at this restaurant in the future.
On a night out in town to Apotheke, the neighboring venue to this vietnamese joint, me and a couple other smokers had discovered a massively large barrel outside of the restaurant labelled, «MONOSODUIM GLUTAMATE». For those of you who are not familiar with this, it is a chemical produced as a flavor enhancer most commonly used in cooking at restaurant established facilities. As my stomach began to turn and just before a friend was about to snap a picture of it, a european tourist interrupted our moment of awe and quickly hoisted the barrel into his hands and exclaimed, «THIS…IS…ART!!!» and scampered away while laughing hysterically to himself.

Chinatown has always had its share of good Vietnamese Restaurants. From the stretch of Vietnamese restaurants on Baxter Street from Bayard to Canal, to Nha Trang on Centre Street, Vietnamese food never disappointed me on taste or on price. Doyers Vietnamese Restaurant on 11 Doyers Street, was our new discovery two weekends ago. I always knew about this restaurant but however this weekend we finally decided to take the plunge. Maybe it was that one had to descend a flight of sketchy stairs to enter the restaurant or the gaudy chasing lights that turned me away but we finally went for it and boy were we glad we went in.
Upon entering the restaurant we were pleasantly surprised by the sizable dining room, despite the fact that the restaurant is inside a tenement building. The waitstaff is a group of 50 something men, who are attentive in filling your water glass and taking your order.
We tried three dishes, the Grilled Pork on Thin Rice Noodle, the Stewed Beef Noodle Soup and the Grilled Chicken Noodle Soup. The Grilled Pork on Thin Rice Noodle is a dish of a bed of thin rice noodles that are pan-​fried and flattened. It is then topped with a thinly sliced, marinated pork chop with a hint of lemongrass. The noodles are not crispy but just noticeably fried. It came with a side of onions, lettuce, presumably to be used as a wrapper and a light orange Vietnamese sauce. This was utterly delicious and we agreed this was our favorite dish.
The Stewed Beef Noodle Soup was our second favorite. What set this dish apart from my other favorite Vietnamese restaurants was that the soup had the color of a deep-​rich brownish translucent beef broth. When broth looks that way, you know they’ve thrown a ton of beef bones into the stockpot. The soup, as I expected, was delicious. To make matters better, the noodles were the round, white, gummy and translucent, somehow a cross between glass noodles and rice noodles. Once again it was utterly delicious. This was one dish where we wanted to finish both the noodles AND the broth!
Finally, the Grilled Chicken Noodle Soup was another yummy treat. This time, we were dealing with presumably, a pork bone-​based soup. The broth was clearer, not as rich, but still tasty. The noodles were thin rice noodles, but what made this dish great was the grilled chicken. The grilled chicken was marinated dark meat, similar in taste to the grilled pork chop I had before.
When considering the quality of the food, I would easily pay $ 2 to $ 3 more for each dish, but this is what we actually paid for the meal:
Grilled Pork on Thin Rice Noodle $ 7.50
Stewed Beef Noodle Soup $ 4.50
Grilled Chicken Noodle Soup $ 4.95
After having this meal, I decided that this is probably the best Vietnamese Restaurant in Chinatown, based on the quality of the food. Other places are comparable in terms of price but when you consider quality AND price, this place is truly a bargain restaurant hunters dream!

I really liked the appetizer crêpe that had shrimp in it. It was delicious. The vegetable spring rolls were average. I had a seafood and some sort of meat (ground) with egg noodles which was pretty good. I wasn’t a big fan of the tofu vegetable curry special.
The only thing I really didn’t like about this place was that I asked to have two containers to go so I could separate the soup and the noodles (this place has huge portions, but I’m not sure if they are huge in comparison to other Vietnamese restaurants) so the noodles wouldn’t suck up all the broth. The waiter was okay with it, but then this other guy who worked there came up to me angrily and said that i would have to pay an extra dollar for the container.

I order from this place when working at a nearby recording studio. I shuffle through the studio’s menu book, came across the Doyer’s menu and think, «Yeah, this place always satisfies.» Fifteen minutes or so after the call is placed our food arrives. That’s pretty good.
Is it the most authentic, stunningly delicious Viet food I’ve ever had? No — that seems to be an unreasonable expectation for Chinatown. The food IS completely tasty and reasonably priced, though. I lean toward the grilled pork over rice noodles, sometimes adding spring rolls to the order, but have sampled many other items from the menu and they were good. Never tried the phở here, as it’s not really a phở joint.
I’ll admit I’ve never set foot in the place; I only know their food from delivery orders. Those I work with are always satisfied with the food when we order from here, and the prices are very reasonable.
Sure, there are better Viet joints in Chinatown, but Doyer’s is just fine. They will continue to get my delivery business. I’d recommend them to anyone working in the area looking for an change of pace. Delivery is fast; food is tasty and inexpensive. That’s A-​OK.

I was dragged here by a really annoying crowd after a gallery opening nearby, and was in sort of a bad mood when we arrived. The guy who initiated the visit insisted the food was the best Vietnamese he’d had in the city. I really like Phở Grand and Cong Ly, so I was ready to be disappointed.
But I wasn’t that disappointed (except by the conversation, which was mostly about luxury watches). The phở was way inferior to that served at the two above mentioned restaurants, but the fried spring rolls, my favorite guilty Vietnamese pleasure after Bahn mi, were excellent. I tried a bite of my friend’s pork chop, which was also surprisingly good.
The location is awesome and the service was very cheerful, but the whole place has a dingy, grimy vibe. All in all I’d rather be at Phở Grand.

Hahahaha. I’m still shocked at how dark and dirty this place was ! I seriously couldn’t see the color of my food cuz it was so dark .
From the outside, This place looked shady .it looked dirty. It looked like a nightmare .
And yes it was all that rolled into one.
You make your way haphazardly down a flight of stairs and make air to watch you head. And tucked underground is a old relic that reminded me of what railroad workers possibly had to eat but with a ton of mirrors everywhere .
The owners here are Chinese and definitely do not pay patronage to authentic phở or Vietnamese cuisine. However the food was über cheap. I’ve believe these are the 1980 prices, since the menus look so crusty that I assume they have not printed new ones since those days .
Well to add to the kitschy vibe they have old old Chinese opera stuff playing in the back and I wondered if that was all done on purpose to freak tourists out ?? Or .
Possibly it keeps the workers from revolting at their lack of light –natural and artificial alike ??
Well the one nice thing was the tea. Damn that was some fragrant herbal tea. I have not had such tea served at a Chinese or Vietnamese place .
Ok the food was just sucky. Haha. The soup base was eh the spring rolls chewy. Noodles eh .
Ya come here to feast your senses in the weirdness of it all. Seriously how do places like this stay alive …

This subterranean restaurant in a random Chinatown alleyway serves my favorite pork chops. The spring rolls here are also very good. This is not a phở place, so I would not come here for noodle soup.
The staff here are very friendly and serviceable. This hole in the wall is definitely not the known for its décor. But for a decent quick Vietnamese meal in Chinatown, it’s good bang for the dollar.

I really cannot fathom how this place got rated more than 3 stars.
Here’s the breakdown of why I wouldn’t eat here:
1) It’s dirty and grungy.
2) It’s gross.
3) It’s inauthentic.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all about hole-​in-​the-​wall restaurants, but only if they serve delicious food. If you’re going to go the dirty route, it should be worth it, right?
Well we ordered the
1) stuffed grape leaves
2) steamed fish, and
3) buddha rolls.
The grape leaves lacked authentic flavoring and spices, the fish was really oily and greasy (frankly this defeats the whole purpose of being steamed, no?), and the buddha rolls, while decent, were not served with the right sauce.
BLECH.
It really is unfortunate that there isn’t a decent Vietnamese restaurant in the Manhattan area. I pity the fool (s) who think this is even remotely good. Put down that pipe!

Stumbled down the stairs after a few at Apotheke. The summer rolls tasted fresh. We asked for a recommendation and we were led to a spicy squid thingy that was very good. I got a nice size sake for only $ 5. The service was very friendly and very accommodating of drunks.
…A few doors down from here– inside a door, up stairs, and behind a curtain is some secret Asian line dance lounge, if you are into that…

Bppplthhhhhhh. SUPER cool location, amusing staff, and piss-​poor phở. They have a ton of soups, but only about 5 phở dishes, none of which are the normal variety. We got the ‘beef stick’ phở (which oddly turned out to be phở tai), a porkchop/​rice noodle dish, and a beef summer roll.
The porkchop was actually fairly tasty, and the noddles were pleasantly soft and moist. This dish would have been pretty good overall if they had served it with the sweet fish sauce on the side, rather than dumped in. People that like sweet tastes with the meats or carbs would probably have been fine with it, but I don’t appreciate it much.
The beef summer roll turned out to be filled with ground up beef that had been cooked until it was dry. Picture frying up ground chuck with some spices until it’s nicely done, taking it out for your dish, eating dinner, and then coming back to the kitchen to clean up. The left over beef that didn’t make it out of the pan is what was in the summer roll.
The phở. *sigh*. I shit you not, if I closed my eyes, I literally could not tell the difference between this broth and campbell soup’s beef n’ barley. The phở came with the sprouts already in the bowl, which is a bit unusual. The basil was a bit skimpy, and it was served with a lemon (instead of a lime… my preference). The bowl was a bit small, and there wasn’t quite enough meat to last.
Basically, don’t come here for the phở. The dishes are all pretty cheap, the porkchop was actually pretty tasty, and the location is great. I won’t be back real soon, but I might give it another go at some point, although I definitely won’t order the phở. Avoid the hell out of the beef summer rolls, too.

The fired rice is an absolutely terrific dish here. It is fried but doesn’t have that greasy, nasty consistency to it like so many asian restaurants often due. Another awesome thing was that all of the food our party ordered was fresh — pretty impressive even for things like spring rolls and Phở.
The only down side was that each of the orders of the Vietnamese spring rolls were burnt. Delicious but burnt. I’d suggest just telling the wait staff to make sure they aren’t if you order them.

If I hadn’t just hopped off a 9 hour flight from Vegas and away from cheap, decent, tasty food… I would have never given you the extra star.
$ 15 consisted of — bowl of phở w/​grilled pork chop, summer roll, and rice noodles with pork and spring roll, plus tax and tip… you were awesome last night. SO MONEY.
Other than that, I would never like this place on a regular take-​out night.

My boyfriend and I came here in search of a new place for Vietnamese. He is Vietnamese and did not enjoy the food at all. I thought it was ok, not exciting but not bad either… but he complained the entire time.
We had 3 dishes: lemongrass chicken, salt and pepper shrimp and «shaken» beef (bo luc lac). The lemongrass chicken was kind of saucy and tasted more chinese than vietnamese.
If a vietnamese person tells you a vietnamese restaurant is not good you should probably take their advice.
Try Nam Son instead. I like the fried calamari a lot from there and the shaken beef was also MUCH better.

YUCK!
So I just ordered Doyer’s for lunch and blah!
I ordered the beef broth soup with beef balls and soooooo gross! The meat was grey and greasy and I wish I hadn’t wasted the $ 5 — I seriously could have gone to Subways and eaten better. My other dish of pork and noodles was bit better but nothing to write home about.
And because I had to make a minimum $ 12 order I ordered Spring Rolls (fried=greasy mess). And granted it was far but the delivery guy shouldn’t have complained that I didn’t give a big enough tip. If its too far for you to travel your restaurant shouldn’t offer to deliver to my office and if I told you I don’t have cash don’t just stand in my office staring at me — that isn’t going to make me want to give you more money (that I don’t have).
I’m fully turned off by this place and its food — STAY AWAY!

Really quality Vietnamese place in an area with a lot of good Vietnamese and Chinese food. I got the chicken noodles and the shrimp spring rolls, and both were very good. I got it to go, and had to re-​heat it before eating, so I think some of the flavor was lost, but it was still an overall very good meal.
This place was recommended by several people as one of the BEST Vietnamese places in NY, and I think it falls somewhat short of it. It was surprisingly bland the the peanut sauce that came with the spring rolls was also fairly weak. But I fear I’m not being fair because I didn’t eat it right away. I’m make sure to eat-​in and get the experience up-​front next time.

I don’t exactly think that this place is any better than any other Vietnamese restaurant I’ve been to in NY Chinatown. Food was decent, but nothing spectacular. And the pork and shrimp summer roll was a little underwhelming, with the pork not tasting particularly fresh. That being said, the spring rolls I got were really good and my noodle dish (BBQ pork and spring rolls over rice noodles) was tasty as well. And also, interestingly, they cut the pork really thin and put them in slices, whereas most places seem to leave it as the skewer sort of chunks. Not good or bad, but interesting.
And the décor is not that hole-​in-​the-​wall, but it’s definitely not the cleanest you can get in Chinatown.
There were also some menu options that I haven’t seen at other restaurants, so maybe if I try them, I’ll revise my opinion.

Here I go on another four star run. A complete dive with delicious food. That’s a winner in my book. I’ll never forget the face of my two sisters who were visiting from out of town as we headed downstairs. I think they thought that I was finally going to go through with all of those threats of selling them into slavery.
Health inspection report be damned. It’s delicious and I’ve never been sick.