Pho Island Express

Douche bag owners. I’m glad they went under. Go back to your day jobs.

This is/​was my favorite phở place! Chicken phở with thicker noodles is the bomb dig, simple and delicious. The Asian guy server seemed like a cool dude. I just found out today they are closing so very sad about this; it was good while it lasted :(

Tried the spicy beef noodle, has a unique set of sides within the soup that differs from other places. This also raises the price a little compared to its competitors. Overall quite decent.

Got their LARGE phở, and wow it was super bigggg! Which is good because when I get a large of something that means I want a lot of it:) their flavors are okay, I wish they had more of a selection, their menu is super small! But you can get your own veggies (bean sprouts, cilantro, lemon, mint etc) so get as much as you want ! Get some vegetarian options please !!

Been there twice and last week was my 2^nd time. I ordered the regular phở with their large phở noodles. My elder son ordered the Bun Bun Hue and my younger son ordered the chicken phở.
Phở – ingredients was okay, not extravagant. Soup was lacking in flavor. 3 * and I’m comparing it with Golden Deli. Noodles were good.
BBH – soup was not good and I’m comparing it with Nha Trang. Disappointing.
Vegetables are in the island for customers to get their own.
Chicken Phở – the soup was just okay. I didn’t taste the chicken so cannot comment.
Overall – an okay place.

I’ve had better vietnamese dishes in the 626 area. Nothing was out of the ordinary and some of these entrees were subpar. You can order a combination if you want for $ 10. It includes an entrée, one appetizer, and one drink. Pretty good. I also like the fact that they have a mini-​bar in the middle of the restaurant for the phở garnishes (basil, mint, bean sprouts, etc) and sauces. You can get as much as you want. I ordered the beef and shrimp vermicelli. It was… meh. The shrimp was over-​cooked; they were basically shriveled-​up, burnt pieces. Like I said, I’ve had better.

I wish I could give this place negative stars. service was horrible, phở was the worst, the simple lemon soda had NO carbonation and was WARM. the spring roll peanut sauce so bad and it smelled like it had gone bad. there’s one young waiter but we literally waited 30+ min total for the check and waiting for him to come pick it up. everything about this place just seems gross and dirty… such a waste of $ 10 and 2 hrs…
save your money and go elsewhere.

YUM!!! Noodles, pork chop and skewers were tasty!
They ran out of a few items though when we dined on Saturday night…

This place is awesome for phở. Their spring rolls are really bad, but their phở makes up for the lack of good appetizers. I got the #2 phở with the meatballs and tripe etc, and my bf got the XL size of the same. The XL is a HUGE bowl, and although I can’t absolutely say it’s a definite increase in noodles or meat, it definitely is a looker. My jaw dropped when I saw the bowl; it’s pretty intense. The Vietnamese coffee tastes like Mr. Lee’s, which makes me very happy, and I love that they have the self help bar with sprouts, mint, cilantro, basil, and lemon. The herbs all looked very fresh, and the meats were all very tender and juicy. I didn’t feel extremely thirsty afterward, so I don’t think they use unusually more MSG than other phở places.
I’ve read some reviews and the service seems to be inconsistent. The servers looked like they were high school boys, but they were always attentive and responsive to my needs. They didn’t give me any attitude like other reviewers claimed, but I also didn’t have any problems or complaints. I’ll probably go astray and try the spicy lemongrass flavor next time, but I’m definitely loving this place so far. Two thumbs up!

Got a LivingSocial deal ($ 7 for $ 16 worth of food) and decided to give this place a try. We were seated right away and the wait staff was friendly. I ordered the filet mignon phở and my husband got the spicy lemongrass noodle soup. We split an order of 4 egg rolls. I would’ve liked to try a drink, but unfortunately our deal didn’t include drinks.
The phở was OK — nothing amazing or out of the ordinary considering it was filet mignon. My husband’s noodle soup was OK in his opinion, again nothing really amazing or extra delicious.
I liked that the condiments are in a little buffet style thing and I could help myself — too bad there were just lemons and no limes.
I think we picked a bad night to eat here. There was some sort of «event» with a bunch of college students and it was so noisy in there I couldn’t hear my husband across the table. That definitely soured our experience.
Overall, this place was meh. We won’t come back and we wouldn’t purchase another deal.

We arrived at the restaurant at 1:36. The restaurant is not full, there were a lot of available tables but once I showed the waitress our livingsocial coupon, she said she cannot serve us until 2pm and asked us to leave the restaurant, go out have a walk around the neigborhood and come back after 2pm. Of course i am not happy about it but since I really need to get some veggies from the supermarket across the street so what the heck, I will just do my supermarket run before coming back to eat.
I really don’t understand why she refuse service when there were tons of available tables and what’s the big deal about letting us sit and chitchat for 20 minutes before taking our orders.
FAIL, definitely FAIL at customer service. I have had better phở is a lot of other restaurants. Nothing special here. The spring rolls are so bland. Never, never again even with coupons or even a free lunch.
Horrible experience.

Unexpected value, freshness and flavor make this place stand out from the numerous phở places one is likely to find in the San Gabriel Valley.
Phở Island Express appears to be a newer phở place with a different approach to the oh-​so-​familiar phở restaurant experience. First and foremost, prices are just a TOUCH higher than other places. Even then, it’s well worth it, because what you have here is a CLEAN, flavorful, and quality-​focused restaurant with fresh flavors, tremendous portions, and a variety of choices and options.
I was very impressed with three things– 1) a self-​serve ‘accessories’ bar for phở– lettuce, bean sprouts, limes, basil and jalapenos are stored in a chilled (!), covered (!!) and segregated (!!!) bar with clean tongs for use (!!!). Instead of being handed a bunch of cross-​contaminated raw produce like most other phở places, the ingredients here are sorted and chilled, covered properly. That in and of itself made this place stick out for me.
2) Portions. Even better, the phở servings are tremendous. The bowls are as big as, or bigger than, other restaurants that may be cheaper, but here’s the thing– you get a great portion size for the money you do pay. The extra large bowls are huge– order them only if you want a lot of soup and toppings. The broth is flavorful and doesn’t have a greasy, oily aftertaste. It’s a nice balance of meat and herb flavor, and definitely feels light and airy. The noodles are well cooked and not overly clumped, and they pick up the broth fairly well. Meat toppings are all fresh and taste great. The shrimp rice roll was well made and fresh tasting.
3) Value. A la carte items are good value in and of themselves, but Phở Island Express offers a ‘combo meal’– for $ 10, you get an entrée or soup valued at up to $ 7.XX, one appetizer (a spring roll, egg roll, or meat skewer), and a drink valued at up to approximately $ 2. Drinks include soda, Vietnamese coffee, Thai Iced Tea and other sweet treats. When you’re in the mood for a little something extra, the combo meal is a great way to try a bit of everything, and you get the XL bowls too if you order phở.
Service was also amazing, as the staff were continuously attentive to our needs and very quick to check in with us to see if there was anything we needed. I would love to return to this place and try their rice plates. If they’re anywhere near as good as the phở, I will definitely have a new go-​to place in the San Gabriel Valley.

What I really liked about this place was well everything. The broth not the best I’ve had but still very tasty and I liked that they had a spicy Thai version although the noodles are different in this thai version. The portions are huge! the service Great! I had a Groupon and they were so kind and explained everything it came with, our options etc.
They have a serve your self bar for all the fixins so you can get as much or as little as you want.
and my favorite the beef skewer it was sizzling and tasty!
so the food around 3 to 3.5 stars the service 5 stars I think that equals= around 4 stars

Talking about huge bowls of Phở? Phở Island is definitely in a place on its own. My family and I purchased a Grouoon deal for Phở Island and so happy we did. We made our way, fighting through LA rush hour traffic in the rain, from Burbank to San Gabriel. Phở Island is a little mom and pop restaurant in a strip mall. As we entered, there was a group of local teenagers hanging out having their after-​school bowls of soup. We looked over the menu — appetizers: from freshly rolled shrimp and pork spring rolls to Lemongrass beef satay. Main entrees: Phở soups consisting of either tripe, tendon, and even «filet mignon.» Other main entrees: bowls of beef with noodles, rice, etc. And finally towards the back of the 3 – 4 page menu — teas: freshly made thai tea, strawberry lemonade, amd of course Vietnamese coffee. In the center of the room, a bar of sorts, where you can get: Thai basil, cabbage (red and green), lemons, limes, bean sprouts, and assorted chiles sauces.
Overall Phở Island was great! From food to service. Will definitely go back to Phở Island.

Great service, fast and friendly customer service
And Amazing PHO and green Tea! Thx PHO Island Express! *****

If i could give it NO stars i would. Ugh! Okay maybe one star because they have a all you can grab sides in the middle of the restaurant therefore you can grab as many limes, basils, bean sprouts etc as much as you want. Now lets take about why this place does not deserve anymore than the one pity star i have to give.
I was browsing around living social and happened to stumble upon this ad. It sounds promising and the reviews werent that bad by other Unilocalers. Came here around 1PM and it was pretty packed. The restaurant is small and parking freaking sucks! Sat down, looked through the menu, as far as the selections go you dont have alot of different phos to choose from. Its only the seafood one, phở combo and some other combo. There is also another page where you can order a phở filet and choose 3 items below which consist of meat balls, well done meat, tripe and tendon. When the waitress came we asked her so we can choose 3 below right? Her answers were so confusing. She said no then yes then no and referred us to the back of the menu. She made no sense but whatevers i ordered a reg and my bf ordered the XL. Dont even bother with the XL. That bowl just mind fucks you into thinking you get this large bowl and alot of food in there but in reality the bowls big with less meat and noodles than my reg size one. Oh and you would think the XL came with more than one meatball, when it first came there were none and when we asked for them the waitress brought out ONE MEATBALL. My reg size had 4. Makes no sense. Also i asked for my steak on the side, of course it came with it inside and waitress says «CAN YOU JUST EAT IT?» And puts the bowl in front of me. Swear if this was a high end restaurant i wouldve thrown that bowl at her face but since i bought a $ 8 living social deal i let it slide. They give u tons of noodles and few pity slices of meat. I feel bad for this restaurant. The owner was there too having a good time with his friends while they are complimenting on his successful business *rolls eyes* i just left this place and im hungry. DO NOT COME HERE!!! The deals on groupon and living social are just traps.

I got the $ 14 for 2 appetizers, 2 entrees and 2 drinks from Groupon and came here with a friend to try out the restaurant today. (Without the coupon, it would cost about 10 dollar per person which is a 6 dollar saving). I got the shrimp roll for my appetizer, phở filet for my main entrée (supposedly their mostly popular dish) and the milk tea for my drink.
The phở is served on quite possibly the largest serving bowl out of all the phở restaurants I have ever seen. They are pretty generous with the portion too so it’s good. The noodles are much thicker compare to the others ones in the area. The restaurant also let you get as many side item as you want like bean sprouts, lime, cilantro etc in the middle table.
Out of the 3 items, I like the milk tea drink the least. It is so sweet to the point it’s quite nasty. Definitely avoid this if you can.
For parking, there is a lot here but there are not that many parking spaces so you might end up having to park on the street.

My first visit was with a Groupon special: $ 14 for a meal for two, which included an appetizer, bowl of phở and drink for each person. They have a combo special which includes this as well, but we saved a few bucks with the Groupon.
We ordered the Lemongrass Beef Skewers and Shrimp Spring Roll for our appetizers and both were very tasty! The lemongrass beef doesn’t actually come out on skewers as I assume they are giving you a smaller portion for the combo meal.
We ordered the Phở Filet and Chicken Phở, which are served in huge bowls! If you’re a meat lover, I’d go for the Phở Filet. However, the broth is pretty average, so I’d opt for the chicken phở. The noodles they use are thicker and any of the side items you want to add (lime, cilantro, bean sprouts etc.) are on a little buffet table in the middle of the restaurant.
Phở Island Express is good for a cheap meal, but I’d opt for other restaurants if you’re looking for better quality.

Bought Groupon.
Not organized, wait was long, food below average.

Beware of contaminated food here!
Find a piece of clear plastic in my soup. I’m glad I noticed it as it was easy to miss. I pointed this out to the waitress, who simply reacted with a «oh okay» and walked off as if was nothing unusual. I left wondering how many of those pieces I ate by accident. I tried posting warnings and a picture of the plastic I found, but the owners of this place keep asking Unilocal to remove it. Shady.