Pho Bowl

I very rarely give bad reviews but there is really nothing special about this place. I came here last week with a friend. We ordered the fresh rolls with shrimp. The shrimp was grilled which was a little odd, usually they come out and you can see the fresh pink shrimp through the rice paper. Luckily the rolls tasted fine, but again, nothing special. For my entrée I ordered the Bun with vegetables and tofu. The tofu was actually prepared very well and tasted delicious, however I could tell the vegetables were frozen and tasted awful. The vegetables were VERY disappointing and were a deal breaker for me. They tasted like they were straight out of a frozen bag from the grocery store. I also had an avocado smoothie which was fine. I guess the bottom line is, there are MANY great Vietnamese restaurants to choose from in this neighborhood and this one is very sub par. There are options where you can much better meal nearby at the same price point. I would not waste my time on this place.

Best phở in Worcester by far, and some of the best, friendliest, service without being overbearing. Their broth is the real deal, some of the best I’ve had (I’ve tried many places all through New England). Generally, I love this place! Everyone I take here who’s had and not had phở before loved it as much as I do. I highly recommend it! I will definitely be going back on a regular basis and telling everyone I know who comes through town about it.

I came in off hours and had their full attention of the servers. They were friendly and checked in on us during our meal. I ordered the vermicelli noodle salad with the meat combo. It was a bowl full of goodness that had chicken, pork, beef and shrimp! It was delicious and the most important ingredient is the fish sauce and this place hit it spot on! It’s one of my favorite place for Vietnamese food and I don’t have to travel all the way to Chinatown.
Highly recommend it for those who are in the Worcester area.

Food I would give 4 stars but as for the service I would definitely give them 3 stars. The food was good but our drinks came basically half way after our meal was done. I feel like they’re not fully trained yet and very discombobulated. The staff is very awkward, but then again this restaurant is fairly new so maybe in time it will get better.
Everything we ate was very flavorful and good so I will be coming back, just hope the service gets better.

It’s new and need room for improvement. The server goes the extra miles to please you. The food is A-​okay

It’s a nice spot in town. I was seated immediately and the service was awesome. The waiters were friendly and very knowledgable of the menu. They helped my son pick a dish and he loved it. I’ll differently be visiting this place again.

First time here was Sunday ¹¹⁄₂₉. It was very busy, but didn’t take too long to be seated. We were told, by the young man that seated us, that it may be a while for service because of the crowd. We appreciated his honesty. Not long after, our waiter greeted us and took our drink order. He came back promptly with our drinks and took our order. He was very polite and explained any questions we had. I ordered the grilled shrimp rice noodle bowl, 2 others in our party ordered the combination rice bowl and another ordered the seafood combo phở bowl. We also ordered spring rolls, but were informed about 20 minutes later that the person who makes the spring rolls had an argument with the owner and walked out. OK… I was looking forward to the spring rolls, but the sheer volume of our bowls made us a little happy that we didn’t get them.
Everyone at our table was very happy. The seafood combo soup was PACKED with seafood. My grilled shrimp with rice noodles was nothing short of perfection. Both people in our party who ordered the combo rice dish were also delighted.
Our waiter was wonderful and attentive. I wish I remembered his name. I think it started with an H. I feel bad for not writing it down because he really deserves kudos for staying cool when it was really busy and then having to tell us we weren’t getting the spring rolls. He was awesome!
Definitely going back!

The food is fantastic. My husband and I are both vegetarian and although there aren’t ton of options on the menu, we were assured that all vegetarian food is cooked with separate utensils on a separate part of the grill. The noodles we had were delicious with fried tofu, a mix of fresh and pickled vegetables, peanuts, fresh herbs, and a light, delicious sauce. The fresh rolls were yummy, too. We’ll be back for sure.

OMG it so good I’m such a picky eater and Worked in restaurants my whole life so needless to say I’m a picky lady! I actually enjoyed this place so much our food was fresh and such great portions I’m a thick girl and I was packed over full. Also our waitress was fun and friendly and cared about her job!!! We had 2 bowls and 2 spring rolls and 2 sodas all for $ 26 dollars I couldn’t be more pleased. We could have went to McDonald’s and ate crap for that price. I’ll be back a.s.a.p Phở Bowl :) ppl give it another try a restaurant always needs a 2 – 3 wk learning curve before employees can flow together properly, and make it work.

I think Phở Bowl has great potential but it lacks structure and management. I am a student at a nearby college and was anticipating the opening of this restaurant because it’s close by to where I live, but I was very disappointed with my experience today. My group was not addressed when we came in and we had to notify the waiters that we were looking for a table. It took almost an hour for my coffee and food to come and when it did, there was barely any food because they ran out of supplies. One of my friends ordered beef ball soup, and it wasn’t until almost an hour later that we were notified that they ran out of beef balls and she had to switch her order.
Waiters were all over the place and many people there were not happy with the wait time. Overall, I would try this place again, but I will give it a few months before I do so. Hopefully, with trial and error they will figure out a plan to run their restaurant.

Has potential, but needs refinement!
I went to Phở Bowl today to commence their opening and sadly they disappointed.
It was nice to see that the restaurant was pleasantly busy, however, it was soon noted that the wait staff, kitchen, and owner were quickly taken by surprise.
To simply put it: they weren’t ready! (Kevin Hart voice).
We arrived as a party of 3 and were quickly skipped in line to be seated, luckily, my party consisted of one native speaker and she quickly put the hostess in check for skipping over us. We were quickly seated shortly after.
After being seated it took some time to receive water or a menu but once delivered the waiter seemed hesitant to give us some time to browse the menu.
We quickly ordered 2 ice coffees and 3 bowls of soup and waited for our food.
We watched as the business struggled to keep up with the influx of orders and effectively tend to customers. We noticed how cronies were being taken care of before long waiting customers and how the restaurant failed to provide utensils and the basic sides that accompany phở.
The owner eventually threw on a apron after firing 2 of their servers and we kept waiting for those coffees. We ended up getting them 30 minutes after ordering.
After 45 minutes, a server came over to apologize for the wait and explained how busy the restaurant was. I actually felt bad for the kid working because it was a constant rush of business. I doubted whether or not the young man even had a chance to take a break from the look of exhaustion and worry on his face.
Nevertheless, I really appreciated the fact that he tried to console us and update us on the status of our food. At this point I remained optimistic, but things were going to take a turn for the worst.
Our original server approached our table and delivered ²⁄₃ bowls of soup and turned to my friend who had ordered a meatball bowl and explained that they were out of meatballs! It took an hour for us to get that information and she was not too happy that she was just finding out that she could not have her first option. She opted for a chicken broth soup instead to just get something to eat so we could get going on our way.
After digging into my order, I was a little disappointed with the phở. I expected the combo to have more meat (I did not have meatballs, rare steak, or tripe, and was served 2 large and tough slabs of flank steak). I wasn’t going to make a deal out of it as I was already exhausted and somewhat irritably hungry and wanted to finish up, I ended up reluctantly eating my soup and left the bowl half full.
We all left hungry and somewhat disappointed, but optimistic for the future. We would like to see Phở Bowl succeed in the future, they just need to establish a strong leadership and have better business practices. I really enjoyed that they have a variety of options on their menu but I believe that it may end up stretching them too thin when it comes to pushing out orders.
I hope that Phở Bowl gets their phở down as good as Hien Vuong on Green St (I’m a fan of fattier broth so that would be a plus for me) because they have some many indicators that can lead to success. They have the atmosphere, and location, they just need to tweak the recipe, work on consistency, beef up the service staff, and get rid of that bucket with rags in the back!
I plan on coming back in a couple months to do a follow up review to see how the restaurant has made the transition! Best of luck!