Rainier Restaurant is easy to miss if you're driving along Martin Luther King Jr. Way because it's…read morelocated below street level and isn't really visible from the road. Unlike many BBQ restaurants that display roasted pork, duck, and other meats in the front window, this place doesn't have that kind of display, so it can be easy to drive right past it. Don't let the location fool you--this place is popular, and I'm glad I stopped in and discovered it. I later found out that both Anthony Bourdain and Mike Chen have visited, which made me appreciate the place even more. The staff is friendly and attentive, and the food is outstanding. My favorite is the giant crispy catfish served with vermicelli and a delicious dipping sauce. The grilled conch is also excellent and definitely worth ordering. If you're looking for authentic Vietnamese food, great service, and some really good dishes, I highly recommend giving Rainier Restaurant a try. It may be easy to miss from the street, but it's definitely worth finding!

Our family of four visited Rainier Restaurant during our Seattle trip and enjoyed several of their…read morespecialties. The beef ong choy salad had a delicious balance of sweet, sour, and savory flavors, while the sautéed venison with curry and spices was tender and flavorful. The baby clams with crispy rice crackers were savory, spicy, and fun to eat. The crab and fish maw soup was also flavorful, although slightly salty for our preference. The restaurant has an older, cozy atmosphere, and the service was excellent: quick, friendly, and efficient. Overall, we had a wonderful dining experience and would definitely recommend Rainier Restaurant. We look forward to returning!

Delicious Pho in Little Saigon neighborhood. They have a large dining area for all size groups…read more They also had a full service bar. Service was very friendly and fast. I had a large bowl of Pho with rare beef and beef brisket. It was packed with tender thin slices of beef. Broth was light but full of flavor. So far, best Pho spot I've found in Seattle!

When folks say the parking is bad, it's REALLY BAD. This was probably the worst parking lot I've…read morebeen in. People free ball it, some losers park and block the lane so there's inches to spare, it is chaotic and terrible. For your sake please park on the residential street and walk over. I didn't mess with the spring roll sauce but the pho was really good! The rare steak cooked fast though so eat it quick. Portions were huge. Service was nice! You do have to flag em but no issue.

Seattle doesn't have too many good Vietnamese restaurants so the bar is low, but this is definitely…read moreone of my favorite places to get pho here. The chicken wings are hot, cripsy, and flavorful. I usually get the pho dac biet and the regular size is a decent serving in terms of noodles and meat. The beef is cut thinly and is tender unlike many places. Only downside is that the price frequently keeps increasing every time I visit here. Went at 5pm on a weekday and there was plenty of seating, but once 6-6:30pm hits, the rush of people come and the wait seems like it could get pretty long since the restaurant is quite small and has few tables.

Hmm, the place was packed and I ended up sitting right in front of the door. Less than optimal,…read morebut I moved on Honestly,I thought my pho, although huge...was just alright. I had an egg in mine, which reminded me of ramen, and I don't think I would do it again. Staff was friendly, and maybe they had an off day because they were replacing equipment while we were there.

Xóm is a modernized Vietnamese restaurant located in Chophouse Row in the Capitol Hill area of…read moreSeattle. Our group of six spontaneously decided to grab dinner at Xóm since it was my birthday weekend! There was a bit of a wait to be seated since we didn't have a reservation, but luckily, we were seated within 30 minutes. We ordered the Xóm Wings (crispy whole chicken wing in garlic butter fish sauce reduction) to share as a group. These were delicious! The crispiness and fish sauce together was excellent. It had me drooling. For my entree, I decided on the Bún Thịt Nướng (choice of chicken or pork, vermicelli, lettuce and herbs, cucumber, picked daikon and carrot, purple cabbage, friend peanut and oiled green onion, and nước chấm). I opted for the pork option because that is always my protein preference with Bún Thịt Nướng. It's always a good sign with Bún Thịt Nướng is served with an eggroll without an extra charge, so loved that! Three of us decided on ordering some of their cocktails, which were fun! We had a great experience at Xóm and I would definitely recommend coming here!

My sister and I stopped in here for dinner on a Tuesday…read more Their menu is Vietnamese with a variety of hearty, creative items. We ordered the: Spring Rolls ($12) - fine Ban Xeo ($18) - big Crepe-like dish, really good, though I was surprised at the scant amount of protein inside Bo Ne ($25) - such a rich dish - I loved using the baguette to sop up the over-easy eggs and pate I suppose the items are on the expensive side for Vietnamese food, but it does feel plated and more high quality than your average pho shop. The ambience inside is earthy, tropical, and beautiful. The staff are nice and the food was prepared promptly.

Overall: 5 stars Fun…read morebrunch joint which is a literal boat built to utilize a triangular plot of land. This place uniquely has an interesting set of Filipino options for brunch, which adds to the diversity of options in Seattle! Waffle and Sago - The most exciting item on their brunch menu with so much going on, with two flavors of waffle, and a warm bowl of coconut sago. I love that the waffle flavors prominently come through and just soaks up the broth to give it that additional tropical complexity. Food: +1 Presentation: E Price: +1 Atmosphere: +1 Service: E Menu: +1 Insta/Yelp/Beli: @amei_eats Insta/TikTok: @ameizing.race

I was here with friends catching up over brunch…read more Seating is quite limited at this place with several tables and a few bar seats. Service is quick and the food was ready about just when we expected it. The coffee (not shown in photos) was great. It was robusta coffee with coconut water which is refreshing on a nice sunny day. The chicken was a bit tough to eat, honestly a little over cooked but very flavorful. My personal opinion, there is too much sauce for the chicken. The waffle was great! Pandan had better texture, flaky and pairs really well with the coconut cream. Banana was somehow not as flaky and has more of a subtle taste but still paired well with the coconut cream. Overall, a great experience for first time! I'll be coming back for the waffles and coconut coffee in the future!

i have gone to tamarind tree countless times in the past and haven't been there in at least a year…read moreor more. we went for lunch and i was used to it being packed with people who work on pill hill or the i.d. but surprisingly, it was quite empty with only a handful of tables occupied. is that due to the razed building in front of where tamarind tree is located or the precarious/sketchy nature of the main corner of little saigon at 12th and jackson? either way there we're noticeably less people eating during prime lunch hours. the food was exactly the same quality and presentation i remembered. it came out relatively quickly and tasted good. i visited the bathroom at the end of our meal and this was where the noticeable difference was: it just looks run down and shoddy. it was clean but definitely not maintained well over the years. in general, tamarind tree used to be such a popular place to eat. it will still be a place i'll go but my overall impression is that it isn't what it used to be; it's seen better days.

Came with a friend to try some Vietnamese dishes that are a bit more challenging to find in NYC and…read moreit hit the spot! It's a bit pricey for the portions, but overall we enjoyed our meal and I really liked trying dishes beyond the typical spring roll/pho/rice place. Here's what we ordered: - Baby clams with rice cracker: Generous portion of clams, paired nicely with the crunchy cracker. - Braised fish pot: Make sure you eat this with rice as it can be a bit on the salty side, but super flavorful. - Tamarind tree soup: A great combination of sweet and sour with lots of veggies. Wish there was more protein. It's located in a bit of a sketchy mall, but it's one of the nicer restaurants located within the mall. The food took a longer than we were expecting, service was a bit more short, but overall it's a nicer sit-down Vietnamese restaurant in the area!

Lotus Pond Vietnamese Cuisine is one of those places that does not look impressive from the…read moreoutside, but the food is amazing. It has that hole-in-the-wall feel off Aurora, but honestly, this is some of the best Vietnamese food I have ever had. I am Vietnamese myself, and I have been looking for months, really years, for a Vietnamese restaurant in the Seattle area that actually feels worth coming back to. A lot of places have been average, or they have dishes like bún riêu or bún bò Huế on the menu but do not really do them well. Lotus Pond does. I tried the bún riêu and the bò né with steak and sizzling eggs, and both were delicious. My friend got the seafood pho and loved it too. Everything tasted like someone actually cared about the food, and I really appreciated seeing menu items that you usually have to search far and wide for, or go somewhere like Orange County or Houston to find done properly. The only downside is that it is definitely on the expensive side, but I will absolutely be coming back. The outside may not be flashy, but the food is seriously worth it.

Hmm, I had some hype about this place from friends and I finally made it…read more Pretty empty when we showed up for a quick lunch. I am a pho dude so that's my order. And honestly I was disappointed, not the tastiest broth around and it just didn't get me. I might have to try it again anyways.

We must have been here ~ 30 times. The University Village location is also great…read more The food is amazing. They really have elevated Saigon street food. The Crab noodles (& ask for an order of their chilly oil to go with it), the Garlic butter prawns - i do think that one needs a better name, the highlight is the sweet and tangy, spicy tamarind dip, and the Chinese donut, which is unlike any donut you would have had. Some of my favorites - the Com Ga Hoy An, Crispy Pork Belly. Cocktails are great - Asian inspired, spicy, tangy. The service has always been friendly and great. Great for a casual lunch and dinner. They're open till late in the night. Often our place to go for dinner after a show.

I still love the food at the original Ba Bar 10 years after my first review. When I need a super…read moretasty, comfort meal to make me feel good, I order the Bun Cha Ca La Vong, the rice vermicelli with Washington Rockfish. It is one of my favorite restaurant dishes in Seattle and it hits every single time. It includes fried rockfish with tumeric, fresh dill, green onions, fried shallots, an Imperial Roll (yes!), fresh mint, basil, lettuce, cucumber, pickled vegetables on a bed of rice vermicelli. *Chef's kiss!* This Ba Bar has A/C (a beautiful thing in Seattle), free and paid street parking nearby, and a nice, low lights vibe. Service the last three times I went was good--friendly and efficient. They also have an excellent happy hour if you drink and like wings and such. If I lived closer, I'd probably go there all the time, but I don't, so I go whenever I'm in the Capitol Hill/First Hill area around lunch or dinner time. The only thing I don't like is they charge for takeout boxes. I think last time I ordered a pretty big order for myself and friends, I was charged 3%. Not cool. But that's the only beef I have with Ba Bar. NOTE: The pics below are from my review 10 years ago. Sorry I don't have any recent pics. Alas, they no longer offer the catfish or the beautiful, layered cronut. Tears.

We walked in for happy hour and walked out with a happy belly…read more The vibe is pretty casual with moody lighting and retro photos on the wall. We sat near the patio for fresh air and better acoustics so it wasn't hard to hear each other talk. Food wise, we did half dozen oysters with house hot sauce (yum!), hollow bread, shrimp toast, chicken bite and mini donuts, duck egg custards, and fish and chips. Dessert was coffee and pomelo entremet (fancy). I will definitely do shrimp toast again and try some other dishes next time. Drinks are pretty but not super memorable. I enjoyed the service that's warm attentive but not over bearing. Overall lovely date night spots and solid happy hour food menu.

This restaurant is full of contradictions. On one hand, it…read morecontains some of the best individual dishes I've had in the city. On the other hand, some remarkably bizarre choices and inexplicably bad dishes leave you thoroughly confused. I'm a positive person (kind of), so let's start with the good. Their bahn tieu, or hollow bread, ranks up there as maybe the best bread-as-an-appetizer in the city. From the moment you cut it in half and feel the hiss of the steam escaping from the middle, you know it's going to be good. The outside is crispy, and the inside is so unbelievably fluffy it's wild. The honey coating on the bottom just adds that slightly sweet flavor that makes it even better, and the honey butter works perfectly to spread and let melt on the hot bread inside. For just $4, it's comes at an unbelievable price. We liked ours so much we ordered it again at the end. Following that same theme, the next thing we had, the toasted bahn mi, was also incredible. This is definitely not your typical bahn mi - as it comes in two mini triangle shaped pieces with a fried exterior. This outside has the perfect crunch and slight oiliness in its texture, and the inside of chicken liver parfait and pork floss just works so well. The nuoc cham also has essentially every flavor - sweet, salty, umami, spicy - it's the perfect dipping sauce. Ok, now let's talk about the truly incomprehensible. The rockfish fish and chips contains some of the worst fried fish I've ever had. The breading is beyond repair - it's practically soggy to the touch. When taking a bite out of the fish in your fish and chips feels like eating a bamboo shoot, you've completely lost the plot. I shudder to think about how this would appear when put next to some of the other fried fish I've had in Seattle. There's no seasoning, and to make matters worse, something just tastes very off about the inside. I don't even mean that's its overcooked, which it is, but there's just something weird going on that I can't quite put my finger on. Also, the tartar sauce might be the worst I've ever had. It's essentially just a pickled salad. There's no fat - no mayo or anything to provide something good to dip the fish into. It's just watery, liquidy, and functions atrociously at its job of being a dipping sauce. At least the fries were decent enough. If that wasn't everything - there's two more things that went wrong. The first one of these is just laughable. When we sat at our table and tried to order from the lounge menu, which is an all-day menu (not just happy hour), we were told that we couldn't be served the lounge menu at our current table, and had to be moved to the lounge area. And then - completely serious - we were proceeded to be moved like three seats over, now told we were in the lounge area, and allowed to order the lounge menu. It was so ridiculous both of us couldn't stop laughing for like five minutes. Even now I find it incredulous. The fact that there was some great firewall standing between the lounge and main dining area that prevented them from bringing a lounge plate one iota outside the allocated area is exceptionally funny. The second one is a bit more annoying. When we got our table, we were asked if we wanted still or sparkling water. I found this a bit odd - it reminded me of Europe - but I didn't think too much of it and asked for still, assuming that like essentially every restaurant in the US - the water would be complimentary. It was my absolute shock that we were charged 12 (twelve) American dollars for water. What!? In the land of the free? And the home of the brave? Really? Twelve dollars? Water? You know the kind where Seattle has some of the best tap water in the country, and you can literally just fill that up. Granted, it was probably partially our fault for not blocking the question entirely and asking for tap water from the start, but I assumed they asked between these two options to just determine the type of water we wanted. Overall, this has a couple of the highest highs, but the lows here are in the depths of hell. 5/10