VIP Vietnamese Restaurant

Portions were generous and the food was good! Service was decent, as were the prices on the menu. VIP is my go-​to Vietnamese restaurant whenever I’m in the area.

Absolutely my favourite Vietnamese restaurant in Markham. Bbq chicken and beef are so good that I couldn’t find another to compare in my own experience. I visit there often and I am still happy since first visit.

3.5 stars! My partner and I came here originally looking for the old dumpling place around this plaza, but turned out to be closed down! Despite not getting what we originally wanted, we were still quite satisfied with our meal at VIP Vietnamese restaurant!
We ordered a side of shrimp cold rolls and we each ordered the vermicelli with BBQ chicken, shrimp on sugar cane and spring roll. The cold rolls were way over-​priced ($ 6.50 for two pieces), but the vermicelli dishes were comparable, $ 9.99 each. It was filling enough but not too much food. The food was good. It came with thicker vermicelli noodles, which is what I prefer. The place was quite crowded during 1pm-​ish on a Sunday.
Overall, good food, quick service and not much to complain about really. Only thing would be that some of their appetizers seemed to be overpriced. Their regular spring rolls were $ 5.50 for two pieces, which is crazy. I’ll stick with the regular dishes like phở or vermicelli the next time I come here.

See the picture that goes along with this review? Looks good, doesn’t it? Haha… you’ve been fooled. That was the dish I ordered most recently because their phở had gone completely downhill from when I used to visit this place frequently many years ago. They started cutting back on so many ingredients, it essentially became 95% noodle + bean sprouts and 5% meat. At those odds, I’m better off eating a McDonald’s «100% beef» patty.
This rice noodle dish had 3 meat components and none of them tasted completely natural. The chicken was probably the best, as it was actually the texture of chicken and tasted like there was some real flavour in it. There was a slab of beef wrapped around slices of raw onion. Yes, just raw onion with no real seasoning or cooking. It was so tough, I couldn’t tell if the beef was real meat or MSG-​flavoured carpet. There were also chunks of beef (?) wrapped in seaweed. Not sure if it was beef because all you could taste was a weird sweetness. The seaweed was soggy.
What was good about this dish? Well the carrots, peanuts, and chives were pretty good. Not because they had any special flavour, it’s just that they tasted like what they’re supposed to be.
Funny story, when my friend asked for «a table for three», the lady thought he said «a table for free» and promptly told him to get out. Throughout dinner, I’m pretty sure she was watching us in case we actually had no money and bailed. This wasn’t relevant to my rating as service at Chinese-​run restaurants is kind of… special. Rule of thumb: if they don’t argue with you on anything, you’re in the clear!
(22÷100)

My favourite «go to» restaurant. Flavour fir the Phở is excellent. The curry with fish balls as rice is very tasty and the H3, rice with bbq chicken and pork is great. All these dishes are under $ 10. The service is good and the staff friendly. There is no false advertising. If you want a satisfying, delicious meal, this is the place to go

This is NOT Vietnamese food. They can say that but they KNOW they’re disgracing the title. I’ve never seen so much MSG in one single dish of phở. I can probably make a meaner bowl of phở than these not-​Vietnamese people *inserts Kermit drinking tea meme*
I feel like every resident of Markham has eaten at this place because that’s where we go for ‘phở’ and honestly I end up here every few months when I don’t feel like going to the better places in scarbs. At least this place is never really packed and service is quick.
The phở falls short of my standards of phở. The noodles are not phở noodles. The satay beef noodles use ho fun, so I absolutely cannot comment on that and I’ll just insert the Kermit meme again here. (Google it if you don’t know what I’m talking about) The beef is hard and I usually end up pushing it all to the side, and the soup is saltier than my personality. On a hungry day, I really don’t care and will devour the MSG like its my job, but usually I try not to go here. I sometimes get the bun, which is not too bad. It’s just average so there’s nothing more to say about it.
Generally it’s not the worst phở place but if you’re coming here to experience the true Vietnam sensation, this is not the place to go.

This is not an authentic viet restaurant; menu didn’t have any viet on it; menu is in chinese and English. This is chinese style cooking with viet dishes.
Phở broth was very bland and it wasn’t hot enough to cook the rare beef. A few bites into my Phở, I found small pieces of a dish washing scrubber in the bowl. Needless to say, I won’t be returning.

Food: 8.5÷10
Atmosphere: ⁷⁄₁₀
Service: ⁸⁄₁₀
Overall experience: ⁸⁄₁₀
This has been my family’s go-​to Vietnamese place for many, many years. Though some prefer Phở 88 and the multiple others you can find in the Markham area, we always gravitated towards this one!
Phở is really good. Always piping hot and comes out quickly. Their cold appetizer platter is great to share if you’re with a large group. Curries and lemongrass dishes are also staples on the menu.
Service is good and quick. Though it is a fairly sizeable restaurant, they are always well staffed so you’re never waiting a long time for anything. Décor is fine.
THE BOTTOM LINE: great staple for Vietnamese cuisine in the Markham area.

Large portions, great daily lunch combos under $ 10. I’m a fan of their spicy house special phở and their pork chop on rice was okay. Not the best place for Vietnamese food but its pretty decent.

Not a bad place to go grab some lunch. The menu is fairly priced and the food quality is pretty good. They do offer different menu items than your typical Vietnamese restaurants but nothing really stood out. If you’re looking to get a quick meal this is the place to be.
P. S. For vermicelli fans, they use the thick noodles instead of the regular noodles. Personally not a fan but personal perference.

I got so confused when my friends were telling me about this place because the English name is nothing like the Chinese name: 金牛苑. I thought they would call it the Golden Bull/​Cow restaurant or something.
Anyways, entering, we saw two levels, one at the bottom — very wide and open area and the top. I’m pretty sure the top is just for decoration though, because I haven’t seen anyone up there before. I’ve never had to really wait long for seats here. This place has been around for AGES though. There is a wide variety of phở ingredients to choose from, and different sizes. The phở doesn’t taste like the fresh phở, nor is the soup base hot, mediocre. I get the Hainanese chicken — 海南雞飯 sometimes. It’s mediocre as well, not too hot, the chicken is sort of smooth, but not SUPER smooth.
I really liked the curry crab though. I guess it’s because we had that years ago when curry crab was less common.
Come here for a normal viet place which is on the average scale in terms of price and food!

I have been here several times, and generally it’s good, I always get the phở house special. I wish they would add more tripe and more meat and less noodles. I’ve had other things too, generally everything is good. phở price is cheap as well.

Contrary to many other phở places, the ordering is not checklist style; the wait staff takes your orders. Service is quick and efficient, but not necessarily friendly. When they got my order wrong last night, they were very quick in fixing it, but seemed visibly annoyed that I had already started to eat a bit of it (I was blinded by hunger and started to eat before I realized something was off).
Food is just okay imo; the portions are large, considering the price, but flavours and execution were just alright. I had the vermicelli with bbq beef and spring rolls. The vermicelli they use is the thick kind –in fact, everything in the bowl was very thick cut. I prefer the pickled carrots and daikon to be finely shredded, rather than the thick slabs VIP serves (it’s too sour like this). The spring rolls, while crispy, had a very dry filling.
Food itself gets 2 stars from me, but +1 for the speedy service.

Due to all the poor comments about the phở I decided to go for something different.
Curry chicken with flat bread $ 13.50 — It came in a large pot and with tons of chicken meat. Mostly dark meat too which is what I prefer. The curry sauce has a hint of sweet and not overly spicy. The sauce was very liquidy and was almost like a soup. It tasted great and I could have drank it like a soup it was so good. What I did instead was order a bowl of rice for $ 1.50 and utilized a lot of the curry sauce there. The flat bread was light and flaky and went well with the curry sauce.
Vermicelli with grilled pork and spring roll $ 8.99 — Very large portions. The spring roll was average. The grilled pork had a nice sweet BBQ flavouring. It also came with pickled carrots, cucumbers and radish which was a nice touch since other places mostly use bean sprouts as the side veggie.
It may be Chinese run but I think they did a great job with these two dishes I ordered. Service was fast and pricing is competitive.

Went here today for some take out. Ordered Vietnamese spring rolls and a rice dish (grilled pork and chicken). Paid $ 16+ which is a little high compared to pho99 in Mississauga. Service was quick
Taste wise though, the meat was very dry. The spring rolls weren’t that great either.
Will not be back

usually, when I visit a Viet place, I order phở. It is awesome for cold nights and taste fantastic. The family also loves it. As I said before, its all about the soup base (as long as the ingredients are fresh). This location was ok with regards to the soup base. It wasn’t the best and by far, it wasn’t the worst. Usually, everyone finishes the soup base because it is just that good. But we didn’t finish the soup this time around. I can only tell you that it wasn’t amazing and not everyone was into finishing the soup.
This time, I ordered the beef brisket curry with «pancakes». It was just a roti with curry. I also ordered the viet bread on the side. Overall, it was a very good dish. Wasn’t too spicy, everyone loved it, and the roti wouldn’t cover your hands in oil. They even cut the roti so that you didn’t see everyone’s hands all over it ripping it apart (other locations just give you the whole roti and you have to watch as everyone touches it and rips it apart).
Service wasn’t good, but wasn’t bad. It was a traditional Viet restaurant where you had to call the server to you. Price was ok too. For a party of 4 and 2 kids, it was approximately $ 70.
It was a fun experience, but I had to doc one star because of the soup base. It just wasn’t up to par with what I had at other locations.
Pro
Good curry (with beef brisket)
Good Roti
Good bread
Con
Not the best soup (but not bad)

Their freshly deep fried soft shell crab was amazing. Freshly made, hot and juicy. The vegetable that we had was pretty good because not to salty. I had very salty ones before from other restaurants. The taste was just right. However, the porkchop was kind of disappointed but it was still alright.

Love this place. Great phở! Might not be the most authentic, but very tasty broth. This place has other good vietnamese dishes too. Good prices.

«Wanna go for Viet food?» My answer will pretty much ALWAYS be «Nah»… But somehow I ended up here for lunch today! Lol.
My brother is a pretty regular customer here, and even has a discount card (for 10%), but I can only recall ever being here once before! However, I must say I was pleasantly surprised with the lunch specials. 2 big pork chops with a bowl of rice and a lemon tea for $ 7.99? Hellz yea! I mean, the lemon tea ended up a lime tea that was over-​sweet, but I guess I can just ask for less sugar next time.
Relatively large space considering the average size of the restaurants in First Markham Place and has free wifi. Even though I was okay with my meal today, I probably won’t be back here anytime soon. Nothing against the restaurant itself, just not my preference in cuisine!

The phở here is definitely 4 stars hands down. The small size is way larger than the small in other phở places I’ve been to, and the rare beef combo was just SO satisfying. Service is also incredibly fast — pretty sure we got our phở within 5 mintes…
The 1 star bump down is for the curry crab that we tried here… $ 60 for medicore curry seasoning that just filled me with a mouthful of saltiness. I guess we uh had fun eating this crab… seeing that the shell cracker they gave us didn’t work out very well. But seriously… stick with phở at this resto, the seafood is questionable for the amount that they are charging.
The crab meat that I managed to eat was delicious though, was just a bit put off by the subpar curry.