Taste of Vietnam

Food is not bad. Service is okay. They have a minibar where you can watch local games so that’s a plus.

I hate to write a bad review but it took over an hour to get lunch. We should have known when it took 15 minutes just to order but they sucked us in with drink orders quickly. I am not sure why the delay because other tables seemed to order and receive their food in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, our group of 5 was teaching a class and, after stressing for 30 minutes as to whether the food would come in time, the main instructor had to be shuttled back to class, the order changed to go and we had to eat sitting on the concrete walk outside the school. Not the meal we intended when we sat down. The food was good but not worth 1 ¼ hours good. Sorry, I will never go back.

I’ve been to TOV a zillion times because the food and atmosphere keep me coming back and recommending it to people I know.
Love the beer on tap!!! 805 and stella FTW.
The only reason I’d give it 4 stars is because it takes forever to get the check. Other than that, I highly recommend coming in.

Me and my family have been to numerous Vietnamese restaurants and this is one of the worst of the lot. Restaurants in the Seaside area seem to not open until 11am (and many are closed on Sundays too) and unfortunately, some of them do not honor that time either! With some detours, we found our way to Taste of Vietnam because we were getting hangry. There was no one inside besides one woman and a waitress came in later claiming traffic caused her to be late.
Anyway, their tables and floors were REALLY sticky. Who knows when was the last time anyone wiped down the place. It was not pleasant. This place does not have many condiments on the tables — just pepper, hoison sauce and sriracha. We had to get soy sauce from another table. There weren’t even any napkin holders — we had to keep asking for napkins. No little bowls for dipping sauces either. :(
Ordering food was chaotic because the waitress kept on coming back to our table asking who ordered what. Two of the phở ordered were missing a component and they told us they ran out of it, so in return, they added extra shrimp. But had we not asked, we wouldn’t have known they had ran out of it all. My dad’s phở didn’t come with beef balls either when it was supposed to — perhaps they ran out of that as well. :T
My own phở was bland. I had to add soy sauce and a bunch of hoison to at least get some flavor in there. The only good thing was that there were generous amounts of beef balls, meat and onions (some phở places like to skimp on the onions for some reason). I also ordered their coffee with condensed milk to-​go and it was pretty good, but too much ice. My sister ordered the same and hers did not have enough condensed milk, but same amount of ice as mine.
Their bathroom is nice except one of the stalls ran out of toilet seat covers and there was only one roll of toilet paper which was perched on top of the toilet paper holder rather than inside of it. Bathroom floors were sticky too.
Service was ok. The place needs more workers. Many people besides us were waiting for a long time.
Taste of Vietnam was our last resort because we had places to be and it’s unfortunate that it did not fulfill our cravings. If we ever come back to Seaside/​Monterey, I don’t think we would eat here again.

Went here after trying to get a seat at the over crowded yet always delicious noodle bar. I was so happily surprised by this place! 1) tables 2) accept credit cards 3) amazing service and 4) the phó was amazing! Very impressed. Will be going back!

On Unilocal their business hours are incorrect, so when we showed up to eat we found out that they had closed an hour prior. The owner was still kind enough to let us in and serve us phở, even though she could have easily turned us away

They don’t have tendon for their phở but it was tasty. Service was excellent. There’s a sports bar attached to the restaurant that is more crowded than the restaurant. My aunt, who lives here, says this is the Vietnamese restaurant in the area. I would come back here

Sorry to the staff I was in a rush for work. The atmosphere seemed really cozy while I waited, and the soup and pot stickers were well worth that wait. I’m eating it right now, and the broth is a bit different than most Phở I’ve ordered; though it is still amazing. I can’t wait to come back and try some of your other items. If they’re as good as what I picked up, then I’m looking forward to it.

Hands down, BEST Vietnamese Restaurant on the Monterey Peninsula. I’ve been coming here for just over a year, they treat you like family… probably because it’s family run and owned. GREAT choice of 18 beers on draught, and even more bottled.
The Phở is incredible and the service is great, you can’t go wrong with a Taste of Vietnam.

Language is not a barrier. Great service very good food. Had pot stickers n fish soup. Excellent!!!

Really great place! Very large and well decorated place. Half of the restaurant is a surprisingly well set-​up sports bar with numerous top-​line big screen tv’s with all of the sports networks.
We had beef Phở. Best I ever had!
Very reasonable prices and the really cute waitress was icing on the cake.

The food here is not bad, just not as authentic Vietnamese, but I think it’s because it’s catered to the majority that passes through here, probably coming down from SF.
Our family ordered the spicy sweet garlic chicken, phở brisket and meatballs, calamari, and Vietnamese udon. My highlight was the spicy sweet garlic chicken! It was crispy and flavorful on the outside and juicy on the inside. The phở and udon has a mild broth without much flavor and aroma like the authentic way, but maybe they weren’t going for that. The calamari wasn’t bad either. In general, the food was not bad, but not super good or wow! It did the trick for us since there weren’t a lot of food places around. Maybe they had better «bar» food that we didn’t get a chance to try.
I like that this place is a family owned restaurant trying to do their best, with the dad as the chef, mom as the bartender, and son as the server.

Great food and an interesting ambiance. Asian food and an American sports bar collide at this delicious spot. The #21 is on point and their egg rolls are delicious!

Well the interior here is nothing mentionable. Our waitress was kind and fast though and the food was excellent.
Had chicken in yellow curry which was well flavored — a bit to the spicy site so I was glad that I did not order green curry, which I normally do in Denmark.
My dad and brother in law both had the combination soup which they were very thrilled about except for the part that it contained cilantro without mentioning it on the menu card.
The commodities were without doubt of great quality.
We ate 6 people for 96USD including taxes and tips which I find way too cheap for the great quality of the food.
An overall good experience except for the kind of sad surroundings that we sat in.

Got the fried chicken wings and some spring rolls. Tasted like they where goth fried in old fryer oil =(.
Ordered a Sierra Nevada but was informed by our waitress that there was not enough beer in the keg to fill the glass. I chose Racer5 instead. I watched the guy behind the bar dump the Sierra Nevada out of the cup and immediately started to pour the Racer5 into the same glass. The bartender did not rinse the glass and there was foam, a lot of foam. He managed to get most of it out but not without wasting a lot of beer.
When the waitress brought the glass of beer there was still quite a bit of foam and I told her what I saw and a brief about combining acids and basics. I told her that she should tell the guy behind the bar. Waitress told me that I should tell him, I said I will if she has him come over to the table. He never came to visit us.
I don’t think I will come back here.

I saw a liquor license notification in the window earlier this month and got worried, but it’s apparently just a slight (as in, to another family member) ownership change after some sort of liquor license violation (according to the Weekly). Maybe they weren’t checking IDs and got caught… Who knows.
But the food has been much more consistent in the past 6 months or so than it ever has been. They’re still occasionally out of things, but I think the overall experience is better. Service has improved. Prices have remained consistent. Beer on tap is still excellent in terms of the selection. I still think the food is better than Noodle Bar, even their Marina location.
Head’s up though: they’re closed Wednesdays.

Ate between here and the Noodle Bar while on a business trip. ordered the same dishes at each place Bbq pork or beef on vermicelli, egg roll, spring rolls, Thai boba tea.
TOV won hands down on all accounts.
Cost was about the same TOV had a nicer décor, better presentation, a better salad with more cucumber and herbs, and the meat was tender and marinated the Noodle Bars bbq beef seemed to be just grilled meat with sauce on top also their sauces peanut and fish tasted watered down.
Anyways, I went out of my way to eat at TOV, it was well worth the trip!
#33 bbq pork + egg roll
#4 spring rolls
= YUM

Redemption, thy name is Taste of Vietnam.
It’s been a while, but when you get a craving sometimes you have to give in. I have been waiting to write another positive review.
The girl who couldn’t pour a beer the last time we stopped in has apparently celebrated her 21^st birthday and is able to pour her own drinks now.
The food arrived on time and was delicious as ever.
Please don’t break my heart again, TOV.

Came her with my granny for dinner one night on a whim.
I ordered the Spicy Noodle Soup while she got the BBQ Chicken Rice Plate
Noodle soup-​broth had good depth and seasoned nicely, the heat and tartness was certainly present but at times overwhelming. Quality of the meat was subpar and the portion of noodles was minimal
Chicken dish-​well seasoned tender cuts of meat, salad was underdressed and quite mundane
$ 20 minimum on cards
Overall Thoughts
Flavor profiles are fare, no outstanding pros or cons

So we stopped in here recently and I overall was not impressed. My first reaction to this place was that it was tucked into a strip mall near a Spanish Speaking Grocery and a Korean restaurant. Well decorated and far bigger than most Vietnamese locations we frequent. However that was about it on the positives.
We went in rather late in the evening, thinking it wouldn’t be as crowded was a very untrue statement. The restaurant was crowded and the only seating to be found was at the bar or wait for their non-​existent wait staff to clean off the dirty tables. So we just grabbed seats at the bar.
It took about 7 – 8 minutes before anyone even brought us menus, no one was behind the bar, waitresses were confused. and I had only seen 2 for the entire restaurant. After we got our menus they came back immediately asking if we were ready and with the size of their menu it was challenging to even get through everything that quickly let alone to make a decision. So that split second response time turned to 15 minutes delay on everything.
We weren’t even sure who our actual waitress was, because we had to keep asking for everything. We ordered our appetizers and they took forever. At least 15 – 20 minutes for those to come out, and then a huge delay after we finally got our Phở and such. But with no sprouts, limes and etc. And the beer I had ordered 20 minutes previously still hadn’t even arrived. And trying to get a water refill was like pulling teeth.
Overall the service was ridiculous, we are pretty forgiving for little things. But to completely forget about us, in every aspect of the meal is due to your lack of staffing, lack of training, and lack of professionalism.
Also, to mention, you should probably include ingredients on your menus for your items. Because when you add ingredients that traditionally aren’t there and don’t mention it, you could severely hurt your customers. I am allergic to certain types of mint, and due to your poor attention to details, you included it in a dish that doesn’t normally have mint in it. And caused a rather unpleasant night of scratching and swelling when I got home later and realized what it was.
There are a number of good places to grab Phở and other traditional Vietnamese dishes in Monterey, Salinas and surrounding areas. Save your time, your money, and your patience for one of the other establishments.