As a Vietnamese person, and someone who used to work at a pho shop -- plus my family owned a…read morebusiness -- I understand how hard and difficult it is to open and run a restaurant here as an immigrant. Because of that, I usually don't write bad reviews. But I'm writing this because I genuinely want the owner to read it and understand.
I love my culture and our food, and everywhere I go I always try Vietnamese restaurants. I chose this place because it looked like a mom-and-pop shop, and I really like supporting local businesses. We dined in during lunchtime, and it wasn't very busy, so we got seated right away.
We ordered:
- Rice with Grilled Beef: it tasted good and the portion was decent. We added a fried egg on top for $2.45. Everything was okay, but the color of the pickled vegetables didn't look fresh to me.
- Vermicelli with Grilled Shrimp, Pork, and Egg Rolls: also a decent bowl, no big complaints. But I asked for no bean sprouts, the server repeated it to confirm, and it still came out with bean sprouts.
Now here's the part that really disappointed me. Everywhere I've been, when you order a rice plate, it usually comes with a small side of soup. This place didn't, so we decided to order one. I knew we would be charged for it, and that's fine. But $8 for a small bowl of beef broth -- barely around 4 oz -- is honestly outrageous.
I understand pho broth takes a lot of time, effort, ingredients, and experience. I respect that. But this? This didn't feel reasonable at all.
I'm not expecting anything to be given for free just because I'm Vietnamese and I speak Vietnamese when I order. Even if they offered, I wouldn't take it. That's not the point. The point is, I felt really disappointed -- because this is my own people, and it made me feel like I got taken advantage of by my own people.
I'm speaking up like this not to bash a small business, but because I want them to understand: every dollar customers spend is money they work hard for. You shouldn't take advantage of that or use excuses to raise prices like this.
And what made it worse is that I've heard from locals who've been there and personally know the owner that "they only do that to people from out of town." That honestly made me even more upset. You might make extra money from one visit, but you lose trust permanently.
