Ben Thanh

Really good vermicelli bowls and spring rolls! Their phở is good too!

When I first walked in, I was surprised at the décor, which is quite elaborate for a phở restaurant. We also had to wait a bit for a seat (probably because it was a cold Friday night). There was no wait time on all my other visits though. Have to find your own waiter to serve you, but they did accommodate my peanut allergy well for this assorted satay appetizer. Somewhat awkward when they don’t serve everyone’s order at the same time, and we end up having our phở cooled while we wait.
I always order the phở special with all the different beef parts. The portion is not the biggest ~ my friends who usually order a small would order a medium here. I would say the broth is decent, but not as fragrant as the ones in Toronto (needs to add some Hoisin sauce). Nothing too special about the meat. What really makes me excited is probably the three colour coconut milk. However, hard for me to compare since I never got it from anywhere else before.
Overall, a decent place when I am craving phở in Waterloo, but would most definitely prefer those in Toronto!

Nice:
— 101 Phở special. Small size was sufficient!
— ambience; clean place, tasteful décor
— cheese wontons
Eh:
— rest of the appetizer plate
— price ($ ⁴⁰⁄₂)
Bad:
— cleanliness of washrooms. floors were sticky

Their phở is really good, but I also highly recommend their vermicelli bowls and spring rolls!

I am a regular to this place.
The décor is good and the service is great. We are friends with this very kind and helpful waitress called Dolly — she goes out of her way to make the experience good.
The soups at this place are OK — not as much meat as you will expect but the taste is good.
In the summer its kind of bad because they have a lot of flies.
Their Chinese dishes are not as good — their chop suey was quite greasy and bad once.
This is the reason of the 4 stars.

I come here often with friends and family and usually order the following:
Food:
425. Shrimp fried rice.
221S Red Curry with Shrimp on Rice
Fish Congee
Tom Yum Seafood Soup
Phu Kien Noodle with seafood
Drinks:
Triple coloured green jelly drink
All of the above is 5 stars. Guests who have accompanied me have complained about the chow mein being too greasy.
In the summer of 2015 they had flies inside their restaurant and that was a big turn off. Service has been consistently excellent in my experience.
Overall it’s a good place with good food which is why I keep coming back.

I came here because people say it’s the best place for Phở in Waterloo. However I was extremely disappointed.
I got a large, special beef noodle soup and was disappointed for a number of reasons. First of all, the noodle to soup to meat ratio was horrible. There were way too many noodles, not enough soup, and even less meat. The noodles were clearly prepared way beforehand and were still in a clump within the soup. The meat and the soup were fat to the point of having a layer of oil on top, which lead to an extremely uncomfortable feeling after the meal. The meat, as little as I got, was not fresh and had an unappetizing odour.
The service was slow, and I had to wait approximately 10 minutes even though there were many seats available once I got inside.
Parking and the location was good, which is why this review didn’t get one star.

Absolutely horrible service. We waited for 20 minutes for a server to even take our order before leaving this time. We have been here before and had terrible service but this was a new level. Multiple people on staff were content to sit in the booth beside us and ignore us the whole time including our actual server.
We have come to this location many times in the past and settled for the poor service but I think this will be the last time we even try. The tables around us weren’t cleared, our table was not clean, even our seats had food on them which is more than I can say for our plates.
This location used to be acceptable and have reasonably priced food but it seems the service staff have given up on the customer experience entirely.

I came back after a long while to have some phở for takeout, the taste is great. However the service was not, as the staff seemed very busy with sipping on their own beverages and making eye contact with me while I stand waiting for them to approach me. Anyways. Food was timely after I ordered so no complaints. Also upping the stars because I had phở from phở-​nomenon. That place had horrible phở

Relative to all the other phở places around the Tri-​City area, Ben Thanh is my favourite phở place. People say Phở Dau Bo is the best phở place in Waterloo, but I find Phở Dau Bo to be a bit salty for my taste. Most that there is to be said about Ben Thanh has already been said by other people.
Recently, they added a couple new soup bases, one of them being the Si Chuan soup base upgrade. For a dollar (or was it 1.50?) extra, you can change the soup base to a spicy Si Chuan soup base. I love this soup base. However, it will taste like Chinese noodles instead of phở.

Their phở and rice paper spring rolls are good. The beef that came with the mango salad was cold and burnt. We tried their Jap Chae for the first time yesterday and found it to be very dry and tasteless. Otherwise, the décor of the place is nice and their phở is reasonably priced.

Food is usually very good. Service can be hit or miss depending on the night and how busy they are. Overall, I’d recommend them, but don’t expect 5 star service.

Pretty good phở restaurant in the KW region. The soup (original flavour) wasn’t too salty and doesn’t make you super thirty afterwards. They give you decent among of meat in the house special phở that I ordered. The only complain that I have is that their noodle is too hard in my opinion. My friends liked the tom yum kung soup base. The server here is kinda like at western restaurants where a specific server is assigned to your table.

Mmm vietnamese food, my favourite.
Ben Thanh is a decent Vietnamese restaurant in the KW area. You get what you pay for — for food and service.
I’m just glad that there’s a phở place somewhat nearby the university!

Very decent meal! Drove through here to do some errands and stopped here for dinner on a whim. I was in the mood for some thai and I was surprised at how much the décor/​look of the restaurant didn’t match the prices. Everything was between 8 – 15 $ and the portions, while not overwhelming, were perfect.
We started with spring rolls and they were fantastic. Unlike any I’ve ever had before; super crispy and light, and it came with a great dipping sauce. My girlfriend got the chow mein singapore noodles with beef and her dish was definitely the tastiest of the two. I went with the shrimp pad thai fried rice and I was underwhelmed. It was way drier than expected and the shrimps were cut into two pieces to make it appear as if there were more, when there was really ~5 ships total or less. I also didn’t like that there were frozen carrot and pea bits scattered throughout the dish. I hate the texture of frozen vegetables.
That being said, I’d return and probably recommend it to someone looking for a nice evening out without killing the wallet.
Service was good. Décor is ridiculously stylized (I mean this in a good way). The bathrooms — man, if there was Unilocal for a bathroom it would be 5 stars, hands down.

It’s sad that there aren’t many phở options closer to campus, so many people still come here to get their phở fix. It’s still such a popular venue — perhaps because it is one of the more clean and parking friendly options.
I don’t recommend getting mixed drinks here, they don’t seem to know how to make them. The phở and vermicelli here are very good. I love getting the vermicelli with grilled pork meatballs and spring rolls — they do it right by having the vermicelli cold (I dread the places that have clearly microwaved their vermicelli from a previous batch).
The service is not bad, sometimes a bit slow to come around when it gets busy.

It’s a little farther from Campus but when a friend could drive or if we’re at Conestoga mall we would drop by Ben Thanh. They make a good porkchop rice dish and also… their mango or avocado smoothie is good too. people come here for phở too but the rice wins me over all the time.

The food and service is decent. It isn’t anything too special. I think this place is rather overrated.
The place is not too bad looking physically. The servers are a hit or miss. They are either super nice or really annoyed-​looking. I have encountered both. There are places with better phở. The portions aren’t too generous compared to other places.
Overall, the place is a little too pricey for the amount of portion they give, but I guess you pay for the nice-​ish environment. I only come here when there is no where else to go. I guess it is a safe-​bet (as random all-​you-​can-​eat sushi places). Obviously, that doesn’t say much.

Have been here many times. My favorite is still the red curry chicken with egg plant the large bowl.
we also ordered the sqid appetizer, love the wasabi mayo for dipping and five spice soup.

Would not recommend.
Been to this place a few times only because it’s the only phở place my friends are comfortable with. However, it definitely lacks in a lot of areas. I’m being generous with my rating because it’s got really nice décor and decent appetizers, however, the phở is pretty terrible. Or any noodle dish for that matter.
Watery broth with very little beef, AND SO MUCH NOODLES. Last time I came here, I managed to receive 3.5 pieces of beef flank, but the rest of it was piled with noodles that made me nauseous looking at it.
Drinks are nice. I recommend the mango slushie. Next time I’ll just order the appetizer and that’s it.