Som Bao Cafe

Great food, service, and price. Fresh and authentic flavors. Tilapia was fresh, flakey and very tasty.
Awesome restaurant.

Ordered up some egg rolls while I waited on my to-​go order (red curry chicken). Looks like I’ve found my new local go-​to spot. Really great flavor! Super clean restaurant and attentive staff. Can’t wait to further explore the menu.

Came hoping to get a taste of Laos cuisine and I got exactly that! Came during lunch on a Thursday and it wasn’t too busy. Service was phenomenal and the wait staff was incredibly helpful in helping me make my order!
Would definitely recommend getting the Thom Kem (might have misspelled). Flavors were exactly what I was looking for and they even brought out some spices so I could augment the heat level to my desired amount! I also got a green apple bubble tea to go which tasted great! Fun fact, they make their tapioca pearls fresh everyday!

Easily the best Thai restaurant that I’ve tried in Hampton Roads and rivals some of my favorites in Richmond, VA. Virtually anything you get here will not disappoint. My wife and I have gone here on several different visits and is one of our favorite spots in the area.

Absolutely LOVE this place. I’ve been here so many times over the years and have never been disappointed. Our visit last night was just as amazing as always. We no longer live close to Som Bao so we don’t get there as often as we used to. Staff is always very friendly and more then helpful in explaining various traditional dishes. The quality of ingredients is great! The Phở, the chicken wings, Sauteed cabbage, lettuce wraps, you name it, it’s awesome! Do not miss this local gem. For real. Go there and you’ll be hooked!

My boyfriend and I visited this place for lunch and they really have some delicious food. I love their taro boba tea. My boyfriend liked his curry. I enjoyed my chicken stir-​fry. The meatballs and the wonton fries were good too. The place was clean and the service was great! The food came fast, which was good because I was hungry!

I’ve been here a couple of times. Each time my experience gets better. Their on point with customer service. They really make efforts to get to know the patrons. You can tell that is at the heart of this family owned restaurant. The food is good too. You have classic thai & laos dishes among some twists on American food such as wonton fries & twisted fries. They have decent size portions too enough to take home.

I visited here a few months ago and it was pretty good.
After a long business meeting at an off site location, my coworkers were hungry and wanted food now.
One of the supervisors spotted this place and thought well if you all are in, let’s eat here. So here we are…
It was about 1pm and only a handful of guests were present.
Our waiter was most helpful in answering our questions about the menu.
I ordered the red curry dish and was surprised about how great it tasted.
I ordered some hot tea, but never received it. I guess the waiter forgot about it. He didn’t have a pad or paper to jot down the order. I guess he was relying on memory alone.
Nevertheless, the atmosphere was pleasant and as time passed, a few other guests arrived to dine. I noticed a few people came in and picked up to-​go orders. Therefore, the word must be out about this place. They offer a lunch special on certain dishes.
Yes, I recommend this place. I understand this type of food is healthy so go for it.
My food was spicy and I loved it!
This place is located amongst a strip of stores and eateries.
Stores such as: 7-​Eleven, Harris Teeter, hardware store, Tropical Smoothie etc.
Have fun :)

Great service ! Great food! Great atmosphere! great price! What more can you ask for?

Only Lao restaurant in the area? That’s SOM BAO, Y’ALL (haha. get it?). Dined here for my 3^rd time over several years. In short — WELL worth a try. Great flavors, diverse menu, and always friendly staff. A great departure from the usual Thai food menus.
Meals range from $ 9ish to $ 15 for dinner, with the exotic things on the higher end of that spectrum, noodle dishes and curry on the lower. I recommend the Lao fries appetizer! It’s HUGE — bring friends or just eat it as your meal lol.
I love their fish dishes, lettuce wraps, and the Pad See Ew (all the noodles, really though), but decided to try something different — ordering Neau Nom Took, or thin sliced spicy beef. I loved what tastes like notes of kefir lime or maybe lemongrass, and pops of chiles, but the fish sauce was pretty heavy-​handed. The dish was way too absurdly salty to eat in it’s entirety. Note taken: next time, ask for less salty.
In other news, their Taro bubble tea is GREAT! Not sickeningly sweet and had a nice light froth. ¹⁰⁄₁₀. Boba was good, too.
It’s hard to rate this place since it doesn’t have any real competition. But aside from the high sodium content, the food seems well prepared and the blend of spices is on point.

I have only ordered for pick up from Som Bao. I usually order Pad Thai or Pad See Ew. My last order was Pad See Ew with fried tofu. It was delicious and the portions are generous. I usually get two meals out of one order.
The staff is very friendly. The inside looks spacious enough and clean. I plan on visiting with a friend soon to dine in for the first time.

I hadn’t been here in a while, it’s a little out of the way on Nimmo Pkwy. by the VB courthouse. Definitely need to get out here more often! Yum! I tried an everything soup and my friend had their Chicken Larb. I am happy to say I ate everything in that soup and liked it, I usually get picky and won’t eat mushrooms for example. It had a ton of flavors going on, and I thought it was pretty awesome. My friend liked her larb, she thought the sauce was too strong… I tried it and thought it was on point. She wanted to swap the standard rice for sticky, but they only allow that a la carte. It cam out in a fun container and went great with the food. Great visit!

Not sure how I’ve avoided Som Bao til now. My bf and I had a great lunch the other day, where we each tried something new, managed to sweat a little bit, and left with our bellies full of yummy food and a nice big cup of Thai tea. Upon arrival we were quickly welcomed and got the low down on the lunch specials, to which I took advantage. Prices were on the inexpensive side for the sheer amount of food we got and the spice increased the more we ate :) I really liked my Lazy Lao noodles with the Som Bao Spring rolls (comes with a great dipping sauce!) and my boyfriend’s Ka-​boun noodles were so flavorful though MUCH spicier than my meal.
They also serve beer/​wine as well as boba and some desserts as well. Great place to stop by for lunch if you’re in the area!

This place is great! My wife and I decided to OrderUp from here one night and we were very impressed. Both of us have had food from all over Asia, but we had never had Laotian. The fried BK Dumplings were a great starter and I would definitely get them again. For main courses, I had the Neau Nom Took and loved it, especially dipping the sticky rice in the sauce. My wife had the Thom Khem and I just want to say I wish I could have eaten both! The almost curry taste was fantastic.

Love this place. Everything we have is always amazing, although my daughter LOVES LOVES the sticky rice so we usually get the big family sampler meal with a whole fish, yum gai and beef jerky because it comes with the… sticky rice (of course). The bubble tea rocks too and they have wine (a big plus for me). Great attentive service and big screen tvs to watch if you want.

I work right across the street from here at the municipal center so it’s one of my go to places for lunch break. I love this place! Everything is so fresh when they take it out. Presentation is impeccable. Service is always great — they don’t take long to bring your food out but quality of food isn’t sacrificed. Their Thai tea is probably the best I’ve ever had and that’s saying a lot because I’ve tried every place that serves Thai tea and Som Bao’s is the best hands down. My favorites from here would have to be the fried BK dumplings and the papaya salad! Will definitely keep coming back here!

This place is a must try place for Laos/​Thai food. Not only
Is the food definitely awesome, the portion of food is definitely worth sharing. The bubble tea is quite refreshing but the Thai tea is the best I have ever had. I highly recommend this place especially if you want to try something new.

Note to reader: some reviewers are raving about the «authentic» Thai food here, and others are raving about the «Thai food with Laos influence.» First things first — you can’t have both.
Indeed, Som Bao is Laos. Some of the best Thai I’ve ever had was Thai food made by Laos natives, but that’s not the case here. I found the food bland at best. There’s no zing, no unique flavors. It’s like a canned chicken soup of the Thai. I just couldn’t dig it, and that goes for the chicken apps we got and the Pad see-​ew.
The prices are reasonable and the service was very friendly. It’s also a cute restaurant. But I’ll keep looking around for my go-​to Thai spot.

Great service in a small restaurant way out here in the «municipal district» of Virginia Beach. The three of us went here for lunch one day and we all opted for the Pad Thai with Chicken.
A pair of spring rolls arrived first and they were insane hot. Fresh out of the fryer. Once cooled to a proper temperature, they weren’t anything special. Crunchy shell, not much inside. If you wanted a vehicle for fryolater-​to-​mouth eating, this is it.
The Pad Thai wasn’t far behind and while the presentation and quantity was there, it was completely bland. Almost no flavor at all and certainly nothing in terms of spicy hot pepper. Maybe I should have been clued in when the gal didn’t ask how hot we wanted it and so we got a «zero.»
If I’m here in VB long enough, I will give this place another try. Next time, I’ll skip the spring rolls and ask for some heat in the Pad Thai.

Service: Good
Food: Average
Price range: A bit expensive
Sam Bao is not too bad at all. In fact, its a pretty decent restaurant. Don’t get me wrong, I had a wonderful experience but probably not my type of food.