Top Vietnamese Restaurant in Napa
PHO Kitchen
5375 Napa St #104b, San Diego, CA 92110, United States
I have been going to Pho Kitchen since March 2019. This is a nice small Vietnamese restaurant close to UC San Diego. The service is very good, the food has always been excellent, and the prices are inexpensive. I would recommend the shrimp and pork spring rolls, the vegetarian egg rolls, and the beef pho. Enjoy.
Slanted Door Napa
1650 Soscol Ave, Napa, CA 94559, United States
Friends told us before we went to the new Slanted Door in Napa that the food was 10/10 and service is 4/10 but as frequent guests of the restaurant in SF, we were eager to try it. Turns out, they were right. Lets start out with the good stuff:The food. It was literally 10/10. It is rare that a chef hits on every dish but wow, this one does. Every single dish that arrived at our table was absolutely wonderful. I mean, mouth-watering delicious, absolutely perfect.The ambiance is cold / stark / modern, and as fans of modern we appreciate that, but definitely the restaurant needs some cushions on the cold metal benches and something to dampen the sound. I think in the summer when the courtyard is usable it will be a very pleasant place to visit with more of an indoor / outdoor flow. More on the location later in this review.And now the service.... there are a lot of this is my first gig at a restaurant types here and it shows. While very friendly and eager to please, they miss the basics like utensils during course re-sets and how to properly serve wine (hello, this is Napa!). Our white wine arrived at red wine cellar temp, then was placed in an ice bucket NEXT TO THE FIRE to chill further. Needless to say, this strategy did not work and we had to ask multiple times for the bucket (they really didnt want to leave it at our table) so we could chill the damn bottle ourselves before all the ice melted. Someone needs to connect the dots as Napans know wine and this is an easy miss to correct. When the dining room was half full, it was still difficult to get the multiple staffs attention as they were all talking to each other. At one point I had to actually get up and ask them for utensils.Location: This is a very challenging restaurant if they want to attract a late night crowd or any street traffic. Its in an office park / hotel setting far from downtown (walking) so the parking is easy but its away from everything. Few will have drinks at Wilfreds downtown then walk 15 mins to Slanted Door. Maybe on long summer evenings.The owner, famed restaunteur Charles Phan, circled the dining room but only spoke to his friends (who tell him exactly what he wants to hear) instead of the real diners in the room who were suffering through one service mishap after another. He would be well-served to actually talk to a random sampling of diners so he knows where to focus. Or perhaps he thinks as long as the food is good, people will return.The food is THAT good that we will likely return, but in a few months after servers have been further trained by patrons. There are too many wonderful options in Napa to suffer through warm wine and service that frankly distracts from the wonderful food instead of enhancing it.
Top other services in Napa:
Sausage Emporium
31 E Napa St, Sonoma, CA 95476, United States
I don't know why this place is so highly rated, it was disappointing by far. We had several issues.- the servers were friendly but seemed very very overwhelmed through the whole visit and the restaurant wasn't that busy- our waiter didn't seem to know the menu and could not answer basic questions on how things were prepared.- our waiter also seemed to write his tickets poorly and communicated with the back of the house poorly - everyone one in our party overheard him needing to explain his ticket instructed or bringing food back to be fixed because his instructions weren't clear (not noting an order was takeout, forgetting to mark requests like dressing on the side)- it took forever for our food to come out - which was surprising due to the fact it wasn't that busy- the food was meh. I had a prosciutto tartine which was tasty. But the side salad was terribly. My salad had many yellowed arugula leaves. The dressing didn't taste very fresh or add anything to the greens. My French fries were undercooked and unseasoned, the same for the whole party. The whole plate was full of eggshell paint colored fries that were soggy or raw.- they were out of core components on the arugula bresola (beef salumi) salad. Instead of consulting the dinners in our party if they would accept prosciutto or another meat they brought out prosciutto - without verifying if people would eat pork or prefer something else.- the other diners in my party were unimpressed with her meals, and almost every person's meal was missing something or wrong.So yeah this place was a bust. Not sure why there are so many high ratings. Things were poorly executed. Poorly combined. And the restaurant was very disorganized.
Le Paris Artisan & Gourmet Cafe
828 Brown St, Napa, CA 94559, United States
We came here based on the promise of another review that it was “better than Model Bakery”. On any other day we would not have fell for such a farse, however Model Bakery was closed on this particular day.We arrived to bright yellow tables and umbrellas. Upon ordering the suggested tip options for pickup pastries went up to a brash 30%. Mind you they did not even offer to warm up any of the offerings.As for the food we received an almond and plain croissant along with an “adobo pork empanada” and I know what your thinking, ordering an empanada from a “patisserie” I must have been asking for it. But i thought how bad could it be. The puff pastry was super thick and hard on the outside while underdone on the inside edge. The inside pork was cold but aside from that not too shameful. Both croissants criminally lacked any sort of flaky goodness one might desire. Would not come back.
Kitchen Door
1300 1st St Suite 272, Napa, CA 94559, United States
Further and foremost service was absolutely amazing we had a young lady with pinkish hair( and I can not think of her name) helped us out and she was supper nice fast friendly and had everything under control supper nice gave us some good recommendations and helped us out to make good decisions i had a Ramen noddle with shrimp and egg and it was pretty good but seemed very basic nothing more than noodles and ginger flavors she did say to maybe add some hot chili which gave the dish lots of flavor bit again nothing other than noodles and not many at that I was happy with it but not sure it was worth the excitement to order and the cost we also shared a pepperoni pizza and while it came out supper fast it was also dripping oil little to.much pepperoni so it tasted a little salty and therefore the excessive oil we also order the chicken with potatoes and veggies and that was really good HUGE plate and plenty of veggies and potatoes mushroom soup was also very tasty and my kid was happy with his burger seemed a little simple but I dont know what he ordered mu wife order their special penny a la vodka and it was very tasty so not all bad but not to brag about SERVICE AWESOME FOOD GOOD and being so close to street and public parking garage was just a plus UPDATE JUNE 30 2024DIEFFERNT SERVER SHE HAD A LARGE PARTY BY HER SELF PLUS A COUPLE OTHER TABLES QE FOUND OURSELVES WATINGBFOR REFILLS AND BILL I ORDERED THEIR RIB PLATTER WHICH COME WITH RICE AND SOME BEEF RIBS NOT MY FAVORITE AND IT SUPPOSED TO BE ONE OF THEIR MAIN ITEMS NOT SO GREAT WE HAD A FLY ROAMING AROUND THW ENTIRE MEAL AND LOTS OF FOOD FLYS ONE ACTUALLY IN MY KIDS DRINK BUT COULDNT TELL NO ONE BECAUSE NO ONE WALKED BY EXEPT THE BUSSERS WHO IS ACTUALLY WHO DID MOST OF OUR SERVICE OVER ALL A 4 OUT OF 10 NOVER GOT REFILS UNTIL WE ASKED AND ONLY ONE TIME DID AHE ASK ABOUT OUR FOOD AFTER ABOUT 3 MINUTES FROM GETTING OUT MEAL SHE WASNT BAS BUT AHE WAS TO BUSY WHILE THE REST OF THE PLACE LOOKED A BUT MORE RELAXED.... NEEDLES TO SAY WE WILL NO BE BACK ANY TIME SOON THEY HAD SOMW GREAT FOOD BUT IT SEEMAS THEY CHANGE THEIR MENU OFTEN AND NOT ALWAYS FOR GOOD toooooo manyuy fruit flies not a good thing something is rotten somewhere they only show up when thing are going bad not a good sign
Heritage Eats
3824 Bel Aire Plaza, Napa, CA 94558, United States
REVIEW UPDATEI have just been notified by Heritage Eats that informed me they do not CLAIM to serve authentic cuisine. However, if you use the name HERITAGE Eats, the name of the restaurant IMPLIES AUTHENTICITY. It misleads the customer coming in for the FIRST TIME.I ordered a banh mi sandwich. They dont use the correct bread used for banh mi. They used dutch crunch bread! The pork is not prepared like a banh mi sandwich. The bottom of my sandwich was 100% soaked in juice. I COULD BARELY pick it up! Their banh mi sandwich should be more appropriately called a French Dip Pork Sandwich.That is why I say the name of this restaurant is deceiving. Just call it EATS. I cant see where the HERITAGE comes into play here?IT SERVES GOOD FOOD. I never specifically commented on the quality of your food until now. But you picked a deceiving name for your business & you CONFUSE potential new customers driving by & see your sign. HERITAGE Eats. AND IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HERITAGE. Your banh mi sandwich is a pork sandwich & you should name it for what it TRULY IS. A PORK SANDWICH.Its insulting the cuisine of the Vietnamese culture. And NO, I am not Vietnamese. ?ORIGINAL COMMENTSDelete the word Heritage. Leave just Eats. Nothing cultural about this place. It caters to the American pallet. However, the employees are both COURTEOUS and PROFESSIONAL.
Gotts Roadside
644 1st St, Napa, CA 94559, United States
This was by far the worst experience I have had at a restaurant. I recently took a group of my students on a field trip to Napa and we stopped at Gotts for dinner because it had fantastic reviews. I have a pretty severe allergy to pineapple so I am always sure to read and re-read the ingredients list. I got the avocado tacos and a berry lemon freeze because I thought it would be a safe choice. When the taco came out there was a small piece of avocado sitting on top of the mounds of green cabbage, and a small berry lemonade that I took a few sips of before my tongue and mouth began to swell. I quickly took some medication to help with the swelling and went inside to ask the employees if anything I had could have had pineapple in it. They looked me dead in the eyes and said “no we don't use any pineapple in what you ordered” after asking several times now holding up there line and explaining that I was having an allergic reaction to something they giggled and said “ well they use pineapple paste in the smoothie” I was so upset that I just turned around and left now 2 days later I am still feeling the affects of this and I can hardly speak. Please educate you employees on how important it is to take allergy's seriously please.Berry Lemon FreezeBerry sorbet hand-spun with The Perfect Puree lemon zest and house-made lemonade.Avocado TacosCrispy fried avocados served in soft, blue corn tortillas with green cabbage & cilantro slaw, Cotija cheese, salsa verde, red onions, lime & chipotle mayo. 3 tacos per order
Celadon
500 Main St G, Napa, CA 94559, United States
We had very unpleasant experience with Celadon. We were only staying in Napa for one night (it was Dec 21, 2019), and my partner picked this restaurant due to the good reviews and photos. It was us and our parents, four in total. We ordered three appetizers which were okay, for main courses my partner ordered seafood linguine, I ordered lamb shank, and our parents ordered the Vietnamese noodles. Our dishes were okay, he did mention to me later that the seafood was not as fresh as what he would expect from a high-end restaurant like this. What shocked us is the Vietnamese noodles, it was a bunch of vegetables and a pile of rice noodles served on a plate, COLD! When the waiter put it on our table, it looks like something from a fast food place, definitely not worth the $28. Whats worse is it wastes really bad. We are from Vancouver, where there are a lot of good Vietnamese places to shop around, so we can say it confidently that this tastes really bad and unacceptable. Our parents couldnt even have more than 3 bits, and they put their chopsticks down. I felt such a waste of the food (and our money), so I asked the waiter to bring this dish back to the kitchen and asked the chef to cook it into something warm. The waiter did, and brought back some stir-fried dish; it still tastes bad, but at least its a warm dish so our parents could eat it.My partner and I thought about this whole situation, and decided that it was not the waiters fault, and maybe the chef just didnt know too much about Asian cuisine. What got me disappointed is that, our parents and I had hot water as our drink, and all of our cups were empty when we half way through our main course. I asked the waiter to get us some hot water, which he did, and he did it ONLY with my water! The cups of our parents were just 20 cm from mine, and he didnt even bother to serve theirs! My partner saw that too and he was also disappointed. This is NOT the service we were expecting from this restaurant. Our bill came over $230 for that meal, for such an unpleasant meal. Will NEVER go back or recommend it to any of our friends.
Sweet Straw - Napa, CA
2552 Jefferson St, Napa, CA 94558, United States
Well upon coming in did not get greeted I did get stared at by many employees. I stood at the front window trying to order for at least 18mins tried getting someones attention was completely ignored. Went to ask another customer how do you order since no employees were helping me . Finally was able to order i went to my payment.went thru and lady just walked off before i was even done. I went to push print receipt And a different lady walks up pushes a button says have a good day . Didnt even.look up at me. Than when i asked her i was trying to have my receipt printed and u just went along and canceled it. She had an attitude so at this point i just told her nevermind i just want my drink so i can leave! I went and waited outside. Its all about first impressions ND customer service. And it was a huge L For SWEet straws. And they didnt even get my drink correct but I was so done with this experience I didnt even tell them