Fresh Elements

My wife and I frequent this place.
The staff is very friendly, and the food is delicious.
Every time I go o get the phở, though I’ve also tried their Mongolian as well as chow mein and I have never been dissapointed.
The only reason I can’t give 5 stars is because the single waitress gets overwhelmed during rushes, so don’t come in during lunch rush if you are on a tight time frame.

The interior is cute and inviting, and our appetizer (crab puffs) was good. The meals… weren’t disgusting.
The service is friendly but very slow.
My husband likes Chinese-​style breaded chicken, but likes it cooked in the sauce, not just a little drizzled on top. He ordered the sesame chicken, but made it clear that he wanted it «drenched» in sauce. I have to say that if this was «drenched…» I’d hate to see what it normally looks like! It was still sauce, a little heavier than «drizzled» on top.
I ordered the Tom Kha Gai soup. I was told the seafood was crab, shrimp, and «fish cakes.» I didn’t like the fish cakes, the shrimp and crab were both good, but in a VERY large bowl I only had 2 pieces of crab. The soup itself was edible, but the spice was too much… I could barely taste the coconut and I couldn’t taste the lemongrass at all. I was disappointed, because the base is what I love best about Tom Kha soup.
Overall, it’s not like it was a traumatizing experience, but I don’t intend to go back.

First time in, and completely impressed! Very friendly, attentive staff. Started off with lettuce wraps and I was hooked from there. For my entrée I got the Mongolian chicken, and the flavor is the perfect amount of spicy and amazing. Definitely a great spot.

I was the only customer and had to wait almost 30 min for a simple bowl of Phở. The broth tasted like warm water.

WOW!!! What happened??? This place has completely gone down hill. :(Definitely have no interest in going back again.

Friendly staff, good cheap food — half Chinese, half Vietnamese. We eat here every couple of weeks. The grilled pork is delicious; it’s available in several different dishes. They also sometimes have excellent banh mi sandwiches as a special. We usually get vermicelli with some pork/​shrimp/​egg roll and lettuce.
They changed their name from Vietnam restaurant sometime over the last year, freshened up the interior a bit, and made some menu changes, but it’s more the same than different.
Downsides: sometimes slow service even when they aren’t busy, could be cleaner inside, and the parking lot is small (but parking can be challenging for any place downtown — at least they *have* a parking lot).

Skip this one if you are driving through Salem and looking for a place to eat. The service was slow and indifferent and the food just wasn’t very good at all. The menu appears to be a collection of «best of» dishes from different Asian cuisines. So there was sesame chicken alongside phở and teriyaki and Vietnamese noodle salads etc. The dishes we ordered were a step below mediocre. The sesame chicken was a pile of fried chicken nuggets with barely any sesame sauce. The noodle salad had a tiny amount of low-​quality pork and in place of fresh herbs there was an abundance of iceberg lettuce. If you have an idea in your mind of what the dish usually tastes like when you order it from other places, you’ll be pretty disappointed. If you factor in the time it took for this disappointment to be served, you’ll be down right irritable.

Not bad. Cost of entrée vs amount of chicken provided is way too low. I shouldn’t have to ask for «extra chicken» to get right amount of chicken in my dishes (had chicken phở on day 1 and pad thai on day 2)

Compared to other Vietnamese the food was rather bland. Based on our 1 visit, I concur with Missy W. about the service. The weekend is a bad time to visit. Maybe the weekdays are better, but we were only passing through so we can’t revisit.

I highly recommend this restaurant. Its a bit of a diamond in the rough in appearance, but the food is amazing. The sign on the window says Vietnam. Come support this restaurant.

Oh no. I hate writing this review, but after multiple visits since my last update in Sept 2013, I’ve noticed a terrible pattern going on. If you eat during the day, say for lunch, the service is great. This is because the owner/​wife is working as server and hostess. But, if you visit when the owner/​husband is working, he bosses around the girl employee on staff, acts like he doesn’t care you are there and doesn’t provide any service. It’s to the point where on our last visit we had to ask for menus and waters after we were seated and when we all ordered the Phở, which is what they are known for an the only reason we eat there, he gets agitated that we are not trying other dishes on the menu. I’ve heard the same from other customers.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that the condiments on the tables need to be wiped down, the forks they provide are filthy 90% of the time and they are usually out of napkins or are not stocking them because we are usually switching napkin dispensers with other tables.

The owner was super friendly and accommodating. However the food was just ok. I ordered the shrimp and veggie phở and it was ok. The Singapore curry noodles were quite delicious and saved the meal. My friends ordered beef, chicken and a rice dish and had the same opinion as I did. Just ok. I really wanted to like this place because the owner was so nice.
The menus were sticky and I felt like I needed to wash my hands after ordering. The furniture and floors need a good deep cleaning. Not to mention the restroom…

The server recommended Tom Yum (noodle soup). It was exceptional. The service was good and it was quiet on a Friday evening in early July.

There is still no new sign so make sure when you come here you sill look for the Vietnam Restaurant sign.
This is my first time to either location and I was blown away by the cleanliness an space inside. The area isn’t the «best» but this was a great little diamond in the rough. I loved hearing calming music and the sound of water cascading like a small waterfall (OK it was a fish tank, but it was still a nice sound).
I was having a difficult time deciding, so I opted for the Special. Today if was deep fried chicken on Xxx with a choice of sauce (lemon, orange, Kung pao, and a few others). I opted for the lemon.
The lemon sauce flavoring was not over powering, as I expected it would be. It bordered on the perfect amount of lemony goodness without being overwhelmed with sweetness. The chicken was perfectly deep fried in my opinion. It was crunchy, but not over or under battered. The whole dish was definitely a mild one, so some Siracha (right there on the table) was in order and made this dish near perfect.
There seems to be a solid group of loyal customers, as the owner knew almost everyone’s orders who stepped in the door.
I am glad I stopped in (thanks to Chuck B) as I probably would not have made it in otherwise. Definitely a place I will be returning to.