Cao Nguyen Restaurant

Beer $ 3.25
Sweet and sour catfish soup — ⁵⁄₅
Frog in curry based sauce with noodles — ²⁄₅
Spare ribs — ⁴⁄₅
Fried intestines — ⁵⁄₅
Beer $ 3.25!

The food is average with MSG added. I have been coming here on and off for years.
I noticed the food has changed from 4 star to 3 star. The service is always good.

Disclaimer: This 5 star review is solely based on one dish in particular.
I’ve been coming here with my family for years, but we only order one dish and that one dish only every time because you can’t get it anywhere else. If you come to Cao Nguyen, I think you should have a try at their Hu Tieu Cao Nguyen (Cao Nguyen Noodles) and you should get it dry with thick glass noodles. Ordering it dry means you get this thick, delicious sauce instead of a broth in your bowl (though you do get a little bowl of broth on the side). You can either mix the sauce and the noodles and eat it as it is, or you can dump your little bowl of broth in and make it into a soup based noodle bowl. Either way, it’s good. My fav thing about it is that comes with a shrimp cracker that I always save for last.
Service is typical of what you would expect from your usual SJ Vietnamese restaurant. Nothing spectacular, but nothing special.

I love this place! Perfect for a family dinner. Customer service is great, I’ve been eating here for years. The best dishes I always order are: Thai tofu with string beans, clams with black bean sauce, seafood sour soup (canh chua), and of course, the seared salted shrimp and an order of roasted quail. Yummmm!

It’s been years since I have been around The Tully/​Story area of SJ and it is still busy and crazy on Friday nights. Not really knowing any phở places, we trust Unilocal and found this place. It is tucked away in a small plaza across from the Lion Plaza and parking was very easy to find. We were a little apprehensive on what to order as this is actually a sit down place with dinner menus rather than a phở place but we ordered their noodle and was blown away by the broth. Really enjoyed our meal, service was great and although we were the ONLY non-​Vietnamese people here, they treated us with respect. Im really interested to try the catfish, hopefully we will be back for that soon! Oh, 1 star off the the lack of description on dishes, but I know most of their customers are Vietnamese so they don’t need it. It was kind of a shot in the dark when we ordered and I later found out about the catfish from Unilocal pictures.

Friendly and attentive service. Food was great and they were good enough to help me narrow down the choices

It was a great experience dinning at Cao Nguyen. The servers were friendly and attentive. There was plenty of space between tables. It gives customers privacy. The taste and presentation of foods were very good. The selection of music was wonderful. The bathroom was also very clean.

Your typical authentic Vietnamese restaurant. I’ve tried several items off the menu and all of them are good. You really can’t go wrong with anything here. Service is also pretty good as well. This place was closing in 30 minutes but they still welcomed in a large party of 15+ people and served them graciously (moved around tables to the party could sit together etc.). Some restaurants would fend people away since the kitchen was probably closing, but not this place. It is family owned and they really take the time to get to know their loyal customers and welcome new ones so that they’ll return. If you’re craving Vietnamese food and are in the area come to this place and try anything off the menu, you really won’t be disappointed. Portion size is great for the price your paying!

Very authentic Asian food, they will let you know if certain items are in season like crab, and whether or not it is worth it. Definitely my go-​to place when I miss my family back in Orange County. The good thing is they take cards which is a unique thing considering most places only take cash. Don’t really expect a super nice atmosphere, they do save energy during the day by only turning on some of the lights and take in a lot of natural lighting. this review is for the customer service and food. Everything seems like good quality and they get their seafood from across the street at the live seafood market when you order.

Vietnamese places really should be broken down into sub-​categories like coffee shops, sandwiches, phở, family style, and perhaps others. Some specialize in certain regional dishes and often name themselves after that dish.
I had friends visiting, the wife Vietnamese, and her parents flew in for a 2-​week visit to the States. I needed to find a good home-​style Vietnamese place for them. I used Unilocal!to find Cao Nguyen and we tried it. I had them order for our entire table and they were delighted with the food. You could see they were comforted to find a reminder of home. They loved picking up the news paper they could read and walk the shops.
To fully expience this place, it is probably best to have someone who knows the food do the ordering and all you do is put on your happy experience new things hat, sit back, and enjoy.
I have to say too, I love hot food and that tiny little orange pepper slice on that tiny plate. Wow, what flavor! Wow, what heat! Putting out the fire didn’t help our drought conditions!
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I’ve been to Ho Chi Mihn city and a popular style of restaurant there serves lots of smaller dishes shared by everyone at the table, hor d’oeuvres — style. I’m still looking for this experience here. Any advice?

I have so much love for Cao Nguyen restaurant. My family and I have eaten here for many years and the food never disappoints. Like many reviews here have mentioned, this place is extremely accommodating to big groups. The friendly and attentive staff goes out of their way to make sure your party is comfortable. I recommend getting the salt and pepper calamari and banh khot for appetizers and catfish soup, fried rice, and clams with bean sauce for the main courses. Super yummy!

I came here for lunch today. I have been going here since I was a little kid with my family. The feel of the place is more of a higher class family style Vietnamese restaurant. Its not like your average place. I always order the com bo luc lac, but this time I decided to get the com chien tom. took a while to come out, but when it did. It just took my down memory. It taste as good as it did 10 years ago. Amazing

This place is awesome. It just screams east san jose/​little saigon. Dirty fishtank. Parking lot with cars parked badly. Old vietnamese men and women sitting outside hanging out, yelling at each other… yes.
First things first– they are extremely accommodating to large groups like the one I was in today. They went out of the way for our group of 20, that came in several stages, adding table by table. They were super hospitable… even with several babies and kids running around.
Another thing– they have everything here– from phở, to broken rice, to vermicelli, to clay pots, to… yeah. Everything.
I had broken rice today, with a pork chop and a fried egg. BTW– you should always put a fried egg on your broken rice. It’s the only way to load up on your vietnamese carbs lol.
Another table favorite is their lemongrass chicken– it’s a little more spicy than lemongrass chicken usually is… but we all loved it.
… but yes. I approve.

About half the soups that Cao Nguyen has on the menu are Canh Chua or Vietnamese sour soup (
). I ordered the Canh Chua Cá Bông Lau or Sweet & Sour Catfish Soup ($ 11.25).
It’s a big bowl and generous portion with 3 catfish steaks that you can see various parts of in this pic (
). The bowl is topped with fried garlic and scallions.
A bottle of fish sauce & jalapenos are the only condiments given (
). A good splash of fish sauce really deepened the flavor of the broth.
The Bac Hà (spongy looking slices which are giant elephant ear plant stems) give a nice texture. Other ingredients included pineapple, celery, tomato, sprouts.

This place is good for family style meal. My favorite dishes here are sweet and sour soup with catfish and the caramelized claypot catfish with add-​in tofu.
Great flavor for both dishes. The place itself is spacious and not crowded most of the time. Service is acceptable.

The restaurant serves authentic Vietnamese dishes, however, the customer service and quality of food has deteriorated in a dramatic fashion.
I ordered a salad and they had forgotten about my order and then put in the wrong salad order and brought it to me. They said I should try it anyway without offering to bring out the sale that I ordered. I said, «what are these white things because I’ve never seen them before nor have I ever eaten it?» They said, «it’s good just try it.» So I tried it and it was absolutely horrific and disgusting and something I would never be able to eat and I don’t even know what it is. I chase down that waiter who got my wrong order and said I can’t eat this it’s weird and I don’t know what it is, can you please being me the salad thy I ordered in the first place?! I’d like to speak with the store owner. He said she was busy and couldn’t come out and that was that. I complained again and he finally brings out the salad that I ordered but with no shrimps. It suppose to come with shrimps around the edges of the salad. at this point, I’m done arguing about their mistake and decided this will never be my choice of Vietnamese restaurant to eat at anymore. I’d rather go to NHA Trang across the street and pay a little bit more but service qualify is 100% better.
The other complaint was in my broth that they brought out, there was a spider in it and the server did not want to acknowledge it and the owner never wanted to come out and talk to me to apologize. I would give this place zero stars!
I showered my co-​workers the spider and they were disgusted also.
This is not how you run a business!

I ordered mi xao there and even though it is quite expensive ($ 70), it was quite good.
I heard their baked fish is to die for. This place is a good family style Vietnamese restaurant cooped up in Sun Plaza in San Jose. Right across from Lion Plaza.

Went here with some friends to try Vietnamese hot pot for the first time. Well, they did, I had a separate very tasty plate of vegan friendly noodles and veggies and tofu — so while the menu doesn’t have lots of vegan options, simply asking turned out well.
My friends really enjoyed the hot pot, and it was good to go with someone who knew what they were doing, as it involved a lot of plates! A very nice place, would recommend. Plus, the beers are cheap!

This is my mom’s favorite restaurant. We go here twice a year – for my mom’s birthday and for Mother’s Day. Hell, this year we went on Father’s Day! It was super packed last time we went. I don’t think they’re used to large crowds because there were at least 30 people standing outside and they didn’t have a sign up sheet. The staff, though flustered, were more than accomodating.
I’ve tried tons of things on their menu. My mom’s go to orders are usually:
— The catfish clay pot: very good even I don’t really like catfish
— One of the soups that are brought out in a hotpot: usually we get canh chua ca bong lao, although I love their Thai soup which has a spicy kick to it
— The seafood fried rice: they skimp on the seafood sometimes, but still very good
— Goi Thailand: THIS IS AMAZING! A mixture of vegetables and meat seasoned in a spicy fish sauce-​ish sauce. Good for an appetizer to share.
I don’t think any of the Mi or Hu Tieu I’ve tried here are that great…
Cua Rang Me – hard to mess this up, but I’ve had much better
This place is very good at what it does – authentic Vietnamese food, but it’s nothing to rave over. Good for family outings though!

One of my favorite places to get the cua rang muoi (salt and pepper crab)! Well, when they’re in season anyway.
The owner and staff knows me and my family. We come here all the time and they usually know our order. But today I was rushing to get to Tracy so I called to place my order to dine in and told them we would be there in 10 minutes.
By the time we for there, the food we ordered was already set on the table for us and they were joking saying that’s not for you. Ha!
Tina’s Tips and Tantrums
— Clean and attentive
— Fresh food from the market across the street
— Higher prices than most average Vietnamese restaurants, but what do you expect for good food?
— Crazy Asian drivers sometimes in the parking lot