Elizabeth Street Café

"We had not been to Elizabeth Street Cafe in over a year and back then it was decent. It was not authentic Vietnamese food, but the food had decent flavors and textures. Last night it was subpar and far too pricy. The rice paper wrapping on the Steamed Rice Rolls ($17) was too watery. Next we tried the Green Mango and Cucumber Salad ($14). Since I do not eat meat, we asked for the beef jerky to be served on the side. It came with the beef jerky on the salad. The sauce was too sweet without any spicy element. We ended our meal with Szechuan Redfish ($26) and were not able to finish this dish due to the texture. The accompanying rice was dry and hard as if it was a day old. The fish had a slimy consistency and tasted like it was battered in old white flour and fried in old oil a day before and then warmed up. It was not crispy at all, nor fresh. For $26, I would assume they would serve crispy, fresh, hot fish in larger pieces. Not something that tasted like it was made yesterday. The accompanying sauce was one dimensional and too peppery even for me. Our server deducted 25% from all of the items on our check. Honestly the whole meal was not worth half that. The ambiance is cute, but it gets too loud inside with all of the tables approximately 6" apart and hard surfaces everywhere. We will probably not come back. There are better Vietnamese restaurants in town."

"amazing service, insanely good food and desserts. we got the spicy chicken spring rolls, the pork spring rolls, red curry dan Dan noodles, beef drunken noodle and the breakfast singapore noodles. i also ordered a green tea / lemonade combo. all incredible! recommend!"

"If you’re looking for authentic or even semi-authentic Vietnamese food, don’t come here. The restaurant has some decent offerings such as escargot in a curry butter sauce and fresh spring rolls. The baguettes are also nice. But the rest of the food is so-so. I didn’t bother to take photos. I’m guessing it caters to the non-Asian diners. The service was good but the restaurant itself was unpleasantly loud inside. We were lucky to be seated in a somewhat protected area but it still got to be too loud to have a conversation across the table. If we ever return, we will only sit outside weather permitting and plan on sticking with the appetizers."

"I am shocked that this place is so highly rated. We had a poor experience from the moment we walked through the door, to when they brought the person in our party who’d explicitly stated she’s allergic to eggs, an egg omelette. After paying $20 for parking in the lot next door, we showed up on time for our 10:15 reservation. There were tables available (see photo) but we were told that the table they’d assigned to us was lingering and they “could probably get us in in 15 minutes.” Sure enough, we weren’t seated for 15 minutes after our reservation time- other parties were seated prior. Plenty of other restaurants are able to manage this situation by informing the party that there’s a reservation and they’ll need to finish up- or by better managing reservation slots. Once seated, we ordered coffees that didn’t show up for 20 minutes. It was not extremely packed/busy, I’m not sure what took so long. Our waitress asked if there were allergies in the group. We have one severe egg allergy, which was noted. Food comes out and they try to give the egg allergy an omelet. The waitress returns and says it’ll be another 7-8 minutes, meanwhile the rest of us have our food, and it takes at least 15 for the correct order to come out. When the bill came I noted our experience (seated late, coffees took forever, could’ve killed friend by bringing out an item she’s allergic to…) and asked for them to give us a break on the bill. To their credit, they took $10 and a croissant off, but it took another 15 minutes for that to get sorted (waitress came back to let us know she was waiting on her manager). Overall- expected much more."

"This restaurant is definitely a charming spot for a great Vietnamese breakfast with French notes. I really like their menu, and it is undoubtedly one of the best places for Sunday brunch. Be ready for a wait if you plan to visit on weekends because it is a really popular place. We ordered Bahn Mi #23, a truly delicious sandwich with pork belly in a soft and crispy house-baked baguette. We also ordered Pho 30A, which was delicious, and the broth was full of flavor. For dessert, we ordered the chocolate eclair and paired it with Mocha and Vietnamese Coffee. If you have a taste for condensed milk, be sure to try the Vietnamese Coffee – it's sure to please your palate."