Bad Vietnamese Food and the perfect Boba Drink!

If you know me well then you should know that I'm not picky with food. I pretty much will eat anything edible and, I hardly ever complain about food. So when I say something is not good then it really is not good!! Last week, my mom, grandma and I went to a nearby Vietnamese restaurant. There's a a lot of Vietnamese food joints all over L.A. I think its weird that a lot of them are runned and owned by Koreans. How do I know this? because they have Korean writings all over the wall and sometimes the owners are there to serve the customers. I'm not saying anything bad but I mean, it will be weird if Filipinos runs an Indian restaurant with Tagalog on the wall right? Feel free to argue.
Anyway, So my mom was craving really good Vietnamese food and Pho 21 which is located in Korea Town is not too far from us so we decided to go there. (I don't know why many Pho Restaurants has a numbers in their names. I gotta find out why lol )We went during lunch hours so the place was kind of packed. Also, I noticed a lot of people were ordering food to go. It gave me an impression that this place must be really good.

Their menu of course had traditional and familiar Vietnamese food like Pho, rice and noodle dishes and egg rolls. As usual, I didn't really know what I wanted until I looked around and saw how huge their bowl of Pho was. So House Special Pho it was for me!


I ordered the House Special Combo. It had meatballs, rare steak, brisket, tripe and tendon. Hmmm..this was okay. I can't really point anything bad about it except it didn't have a lot of meat. I've had better Pho but this wasn't bad. It was okay and it definitely filled me up. I had to share it with my mom and grandma since it was way too much soup for me to finish.



I ate it with Hoisin sauce and Chili sauce

My grandma got their BBQ Chicken and Rice dish. This was really nasty. I know nasty is a harsh word to use but the dish seriously sucked. The fried rice and chicken was really oily. I never mind oily food but this was way too oily for my liking. I could taste the oil in my mouth..yuck! Also, the BBQ Chicken was very bland. A little salt would be nice and I can't help but notice the small portion. Once again they were stingy with the meat sigh...


My mom had the noodle salad with Beef and Egg roll. My mom is also not a picky eater and, she said this wasn't good at all. I tasted it and she was right. It was very bland. Even the sauce that you pour in it was bland. No bueno! They're supposed to be tasty and refreshing but we didn't care for it all all.




Overall, it was a bad experience. The service was excellent but the food was really bad. I guess we ordered the wrong thing but this is far by the worst Vietnamese food I've ever had O_o We will never come back here again. I may recommend the Pho if you decided to come here since it was decent but other than that don't order any of the noddle and rice dishes!

After bad Vietnamese food we went across the street at the Kaffee House, a Korean Coffee house and lounge and got some Boba drinks or Bubble Tea. Boba drinks are a slushy, smoothie with huge tapioca inside. This definitely made up for the bad food. The slushies were smooth, big and lots of bobas in it.




Their regular size boba drinks are really big and its almost 5 bucks. I don't mind paying 5 bucks for a huge boba drink ^_^I got the Green Tea Smoothie with Boba. Green tea is my favorite flavor! I had to share it with my grandma since it was too big.

My mom got the Thai Tea Smoothie with Boba. There was a lot of Boba inside than expected which was a yay for me!

Pho 21
705 S Western Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90005
Neighborhood: Koreatown
          (213) 739-7998     



Kaffee House
700 S Western AveSte #102
Los Angeles, CA 90005
Neighborhood: Koreatown 

2 comments

April said…
Hi Becky! Justin and I got BOBA today too! I recently fell in love with Pho! A Vietnamese friend of mine told me to not go to any Pho place with numbers because it's not authentic or something like that. Nonetheless, I am sorry you had a bad experience at that restaurant.
Unknown said…
Hi, that's for the info. I was wondering about those two places. What is your favorite Pho place in LA?

Cheers.