Le Bambou is a family restaurant in Del Mar serving excellent Vietnamese food for many years. The egg rolls are terrific, as is the variety of soups and main dishes. The staff is friendly, helpful and efficient. Parking is no problem. read more

The pho is amazing! Ginger chicken is amazing! Crispy egg rolls are amazing! Great service. Highly recommend

The food is consistently wonderful. I have been coming here for years and have tried many dishes which are diverse and unique. Their Imperial rolls and clay pots are consistently wonderful, but then, so is their seafood curry. My guests and I are never disappointed. Le Bambou has, too my knowledge, always been family run an they are on their 3rd or 4th generation. They are a tight, dedicated, knowledgeable, family who know food and wine well and how to pair it. The service is spot on without being pretentious. They just go about doing their very best for their guests and it shows! It is just such a lovely spot, with a knowledgeable staff offering attentive service and great food. It always makes for a relaxed, delightful time, well spent and especially well fed. read more

Absolutely love this restaurant. The food and the service are fantastic! Little hidden gem. My favorites are the vegetable ambrosia for appetizer and the eggplant for entree. The veggie ambrosia is the freshest and mostest delicious vegetarian spring rolls ever. Plus you make your own at your table so it's super fun and just the way you like them. The eggplant is excellent. I don't eat rice so they always add extra veggies for me instead. They have a great menu with lots of vegetarian/vegan options as well as meat and fish. This restaurant is family owned and everyone is super nice and attentive. Highly recommend this restaurant. read more

Had dinner here yesterday. The food and service was amazing and I will definitely be back! It does get busy so be sure to make a reservation. You will not be disappointed. read more

35+ years and the food, service and ambiance are still SUPERB. Still a fantastic menu with a long list of tasty delights to delight the most demanding patron. Almost as good as eating in Saigon but without the fireworks. The second generation owners are doing a wonderful job of preserving all of the great experience and tastes that their parents introduced to Del Mar in the mid "80's. You can pay more but you can't get better. We will continue coming here forever. Pure delight in every sense of the word. read more

Used to love this place. I have been sitting at my table for 35 minutes without a single waiter coming by. In this time so far I have heard five or six orders taken by phone with two of them so far being placed on the table for pickup. It is Saturday at 640pm, but having a single waiter and taking phone orders is not smart. I am walking out momentarily (now 40 minutes in without a waiter) as I have seen multiple tables do already. read more

Really great service with good soup. One of the top 10 Pho places in San Diego. I think it is family run because the staff is very sweet ant attentive. read more

Le Bambou - pho special!! - Vietnamese Near Me - Del Mar, California

When the waiters are running from table to table you have a problem. The service is pitiful at best. The food is good but the wait staff run to your table, spend 10-15 seconds to get your order and then run to their next task. Not a pleasant experience. Probably not fun for the waiters either. And I suspect it is reflected in their tips. Hire more staff. read more

This is my second review because it's just that GREAT! My friends and I drive up to Del Mar because their entrees are delicious. We ordered the appetizer Imperial rolls, sole curry, shaking beef, and vegetable with tofu! My boyfriend who's finicky about Vietnamese food was also impressed. It's all freshly prepared, flavorful, and healthy! The staff are super friendly too! If you're in the area, I highly recommend! read more

Hubby and I came here while we were in town visiting and brought our hostess here for dinner. It wasn't busy at all so we were seated right away in a choice booth. Our dining companion had been here once before and remembered the cook it youself beef (under Specialties) was delicious. We also ordered the recommended rolled beef, scallop in tamarind sauce, combination fried rice, and crab omelet. The cook-it-yourself beef was fantastic. Nothing like open flame and butter to whet appetites! And really butter (like bacon) makes everything better. The beef sizzling in the chunk of butter they give you turns out super delicious, especially when wrapped with the veggies they give you. We barely used the dip that came with. Also, here's a gem...thinking of what to do with all that meat juice and butter left in the pan? Toss some (not all, you glutton!) in with your rice. You're welcome. The rolled beef and crab omelet were also great. The rolled beef did not disappoint (thanks, Yelpers!). The Combination Fried Rice was tasty...the first time around. We liked it so much we ordered another plate. Unfortunately, the second plate had extra MSG/salt, as if the cook forgot twice that it'd already been added. It was crazy salty and we couldn't eat very much of it. We should have sent it back but it wasn't until later we were comparing notes that we realized ours were not isolated bites. For dessert, we got the banana flambe. This was probably the only real disappointment of the evening. The bananas were deep fried in a thick batter. Tableside, the gentleman poured rum (and something way more alcoholic) over the tempura'd bananas and lit it up for about 20 seconds. That's all. It wasn't flamed nearly long enough to deaden the alcohol taste even a little bit so we ended up taking the batter off and just eating...the bananas. So, lesson is - eat dinner here, save your dessert for somewhere else. Service was okay, everyone was nice and friendly. read more

I've only gotten take out from here but nothing makes me better when I'm sick than their chicken noodle soup. It's the perfect broth with a little spice but nothing overwhelming. And I've never seen such a beautiful egg roll. The service is always so friendly and appreciative of our business read more

I've had really good Vietnamese food here in San Diego, but Le Bambou is not one of these places. The food was just so-so, but it certainly wasn't up to par with the $55 price tag (before gratuity) for two diners we ended up paying. We initially attempted to dine at a Peruvian restaurant, Qero Restaurant, in Encinitas, but all the tables were booked for the night. The experience at Le Bambou made me want to go to Qero even more. The flavors lacked the essence and inherent freshness with which I am familiar with Vietnamese cuisine. My husband ordered a beef dish, which you "grill" at the table, but what came out was a small teflon-coated frying pan set over a butane flame. I eyed the setup with alarm, with thoughts of carcinogenic properties of burning teflon racing through my mind. I suggested to my husband that perhaps he should cook all of the sliced beef at once and take the pan off the flame (pictures are uploaded on Yelp). The restaurant was disappointing, especially for its reputed upscale level. We won't be going back. Oh, yeah. They forgot to serve the soup we ordered, but they didn't forget to charge us for it. read more

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Another restaurant that I've lived near for so long, I finally decided to give it a try. Turns out, I wasn't missing anything. It's located back in the corner of a small strip mall. I've seen it many times but it was the recent recommendation from a friend that made me want to finally try it. It's small and quaint. I went in on a Saturday evening and it was fairly busy so I took that as a good sign regarding the food. We ordered the veggie rolls, stir fried chicken and vegetables and an order of chicken fried rice. I was a bit stunned to get a bill for over $40. We didn't have to wait very long for our order. So, the stir fried chicken and vegetables. Very bland and the pieces of chicken seemed like leftover bits of chicken that nobody else would use. The veggies were really good and it all came in some broth that was just shy of flavorless. Very disappointing. The chicken fried rice was average at best. A bit too heavy with the egg and this time the chicken pieces were tiny 1/2 inch square pieces and we probably could have counted all of them. Basically, there wasn't much chicken and the whole rice dish was just average at best. The imperial veggie rolls come in an order of 4 and we only ate one. They are quite saturated in oil and the veggie filling was pretty light. Tasted mostly like I was eating a greasy fried shell with barely anything inside. Not the worst food I've eaten, but I doubt I would go back. There are many great Vietnamese restaurants around the Convoy area; but if you don't want to drive that far go to China Cafe on Carmel Valley Road. Infinitely better! Or Spices Thai Cafe, only about a mile from this place. Lastly, to the people of Le Bambou, you are still using Styrofoam containers. If you aren't aware, even though it has the recycling symbol on the bottom, the city of San Diego does NOT take Styrofoam and the only place that will take it is down near the Mexican border. There are PLENTY of plastic recyclable containers available. Look at Spice Thai Cafe.... they use all recyclable containers... as do just about every other food business in San Diego. The Styrofoam containers is enough for me never to go to this place and to let others know also to avoid until they use ALL recyclable containers. read more

This authentic Vietnamese family restaurant is tucked in the corner of Del Mar heights plaza. Food was delicious it's like eating at home with my Mom's cooking. The Imperial Rolls was so awesome we had to order a second order. Shaking Beef was flavorful and cooked perfectly. We also had the salmon clay pot and Star of the Sea with Tamarind sauce ( customized with crispy egg noodle instead of rice) We devoured the dishes and were super content. Snuck a picture with the owner too! He was so welcoming and accommodating. Thoroughly enjoyed our time there. Definitely will be coming back to this place when I'm in the area. read more

Le Bambou - Vietnamese Near Me - Del Mar, California

One of my favorite Thai restaurants in San Diego. Very friendly service. Nice atmosphere. We like the Chicken with mixed vegetables and ambrosia wraps. read more

Walked in and talked to hostess, told her the count. Then some nasty old individual came out of the back and started yelling across the restaurant (pickup or dine in or what) in a nasty voice. The hostess tried to tell her we're dine in. Then she again in a nasty tone asked if we have a reservation. The place was empty! I walked out immediately. I'm not paying anyone who treats customers like this read more

It's not often you're greeted by a guy in a tie at a Vietnamese restaurant. I had the shrimp curry which had a star next to it signifying that it was spicy. Well, not so much as it turned out. It was pretty bland actually. The portion size was pretty small and I walked out still hungry, which is hard to do at an Asian restaurant. It wasn't bad, but for the value there are much better options when looking for Vietnamese food. read more

Le Bambou - Shrimp curry - Vietnamese Near Me - Del Mar, California

This review s for what is essentially a very good Vietnamese-themed restaurant, and my rating reflects this. The place used to be a Vietnamese-French variety, as hinted in the name, but these times are apparently gone, don't expect the traces of the haute cuisine. The place feels somewhat "elevated": white linen, good service, interesting dishes. Anything made in a pot is particularly recommended. Overall: a reliable place for a very decent and not very expensive meal. A tip: if you want to sit outside (the architect did a decent job on the patio) and still have the white linen, you might need to reserve the table in advance. read more

This place is great, always so consistent, been coming here for years and it just seems to get better with time. Friendly staff, very attentive, and the food is out of this world, highly recommend read more

Down for a visit in SD and craving me some Pho! Got dinner last night here ( takeout) and it did not disappoint! I had the Pho Special and their pork and Veggie egg rolls. So delicious! I'm a food snob because I can cook my own pho, but this place not only uses filet mignon for the sliced beef, they give you this amazingly tender beef bone that just makes this bowl of pho almost homemade. The egg rolls are the bomb -let's start with the fact that they are traditionally made with rice paper and not the thick lumpia skin. They are crispy and the size of these suckers are like 2 egg rolls in one. So satisfying! I live in Orange County and Westminster ((Little Saigon) is not far from where I live and I have yet to have such good quality Vietnamese food. Will definitely be looking forward to coming back when I'm down this way! read more

We needed a Pho fix, as we actually had a San Diego 'fall day.' Ordered to go: chicken pho and fried egg rolls. Our order was ready quickly and the staff friendly upon pick up. Food was good, average pho and egg rolls. We will be back again due to the convenient location to our home. read more

Steak pho and the imperial rolls are my go to! So so so good! My favorite Vietnamese restaurant I've ever been too!

I've been coming here since I was a little kid. Le Bambou is delicious, fresh, and has good prices. Service is always great and if you order takeout they package everything with so much care. They have really great vegetarian options too! read more

Nice informal restaurant, with good ambience. Tasty food. Conveniently located right off the 5 Freeway, and good for a taste of Vietnamese food. read more

This review is based on one takeout order but wow was it good! If you like Cornish hen, you've got to try theirs. It is a whole hen, cut in two, which is tender and flavorful, served with a side of rice and a few fresh vegetables. We'll be back! read more

Best Vietnamese in north county! Great specials for lunch and wide variety of apps and entrees on the full menu. The shaking beef is a must and never disappoints- the meat is so tender and flavorful. Definitely a fan favorite. Favorite appetizers include the crab, shrimp and pork imperial rolls and rolled beef - both served with veggies and dipping sauce. Love all their soups- comfort food but never too heavy! read more

The best Pho I've ever had. Very nice staff. The restaurant is cute. I will be back. It is located in the Del Mar shopping center on Del Mar Heights & Mango. read more

Ordered a salad and in menu said NOTHING about it being spicy ....I didn't even take a bit it just barely hit my tongue and it was beyound spicy !!!! I'm allergic to anything remotely spicy ...they at first tried to tell me it's not spicy then he he said he can make it none spicy??! Wtf . Next the pho came out the portion was miniature half size of other pho places and double price ! Never coming back this place sucks !!! Never coming back should have gone alborz instead . Do yourself favor save ur money go to convoy for pho read more

I was so excited for this place but ended up more than disappointed due to poor service and their food being mediocre at best for such high prices. ($16 regular bowl of pho) I ordered pho for takeout and asked the guy (I believe he was the owner) over the phone to please include all sauces/condiments usually paired with pho in my package. When I got there, I kindly confirmed with the same guy that all sauces were included and he looked at the receipt and confirmed. I get to my office and I notice there is only ONE small packet of sriracha and hoisin sauce. Other places usually include chili oil and will give you more than 1 packet of sriracha. There were also no cut up jalapeños in the bag with the vegetables. Again, something very typical at literally all other pho places. As I was just getting over how bland my pho was going to taste and how I would just have to suck it up, I was getting ready to get the chop sticks, spoon, and napkins out, except there was not a single utensil provided. Not a single napkin. No chop sticks. Nothing -- on a takeout order. At this point, I called back, and spoke with the same guy on the phone to let him know at least looking for some type of acknowledgement and maybe that they'll do better on my next order. All I was able to get was "yeah that's all the sauces we give" and "yeah we don't provide utensils unless the customer asks". Honestly, if it's not your practice to bag the utensils, at least confirm with the customer they do not need any or place them out so the customer can easily grab some. He did ask me if I was sure I didn't want to drive back as I told him I was at work with no utensils and a bowl of pho. Obviously, I am not making another 20 minute drive for chopsticks and a plastic spoon but thanks! I understand the pandemic situation but this restaurant was not busy at all and I would expect for them to up their to-go order game/service, since that's how they're mainly operating, but no. For $16 regular bowl of bland pho I did expect a little more. You're way better at a mom & pop shop -- do not waste your money here! read more

This restaurant is a hidden gem. As a vegetarian, the eggplant with basil is my favorite. Full of flavor. As non vegetarian, my the shaken beef is one of the best place to eat flavorful meat. Place is clean, food service and quality is consistent. I recommend this place read more

Was in Del Mar looking for a place and Vietnamese sounded good. So as usual I relied on help from Yelp and was not let down. I started with Crispy Shrimp, Crab, and Pork Imperial Rolls at the suggestion of our server. Oh my these were amazing. I could have made a meal out of them. What was unique was the brought out lettuce leaves and fresh mint and you rolled the rolled in them. Very good! My main dish I had the Star of the Sea Curry. It has a melody of Shrimp, scallops and squid in a yellow curry. Again this was at the recommendation of our server. The Curry was perfect just the right flavor and spice and all the seafood was flavorful and cooked as it should be. Next time in Del Mar I will go here again. read more

Le Bambou - Crispy Shrimp, Crab, and Pork Imperial Rolls! Thumbs up - Vietnamese Near Me - Del Mar, California

This place serves the best pho and service. They are always willing to do their best to serve you and make your experience a pleasant one. Will definitely be coming back here again! read more

One of the hidden gems of Del Mar and honestly all of San Diego in my opinion. Clean, crisp atmosphere. It's upscale and fresh. It has a classic feel to it and it hasn't changed much in 10 years, which in my book is a good thing! I love the vercimille noodles with imperial rolls and shrimp, i love the southern style soup! All of their soups are fabulous. They have so many gluten free options that it's on my family's once a week restaurants! Please go there, you will love it! read more

My friends and i stumbled upon this restaurant out of curiosity and wanted to try a different Vietnamese place. The quality of the food was to die for. We came once but had to come back to try something more. I can say that this was the best place to try something different. They had their own take on Vietnamese food. Everything inside was emaculate. The food.. there is no way to explain just how amazing the food was. You just have to try it yourself. I only noticed two people working the front and they did an amazing job. Would definitely come back again. I don't normally ever write a review but I had to this one time read more

Amazing food and service. I will definitely be coming back. Reasonable priced. Enjoyed the quiet atmosphere.

Highly recommend this place. The staff is always very courteous. The food is outstanding and is made very quickly after I order. I highly recommend to get the duck dish - absolutely phenomenal and finger linking good!!! The vegetarian crunchy spring rolls are very very good as well! read more

This is a Vietnamese restaurant, but the menu seems Thai inspired. We ordered a variety of dishes from here for take out and all of them were pretty good, although some of the flavors were somewhat bland. I enjoyed the curry and the duck, despite the fact that the skin was a bit dry, but crispy nonetheless! They did forget to give us one of the dishes we ordered, which sucked because we paid for it and didn't get it. Despite that, this is a decent option for this part of SD where food options are pretty limited. read more

delicious food, great customer service, great ambiance. loved it and would love to come back! tried some of the soups and they were delightful :) woo woo read more

What an excellent Vietnamese restaurant! Tucked away in the corner of a strip mall in Del Mar. Delicious food and reasonable prices.