MANH -Mt Airy Noodle House

Bahn mi was not fresh. Bread was extremely stale. One star since it’s a cool space, but the food could be greatly improved simply by using fresh ingredients.

I am thankful I didn’t get food poisoning here. Ingredients were old and slimey. The phở was beef broth. Top Ramen makes a better broth. There was nothing remotely Vietnamese about this place. Please don’t waste your time and money. This was a truly frightening experience.

This place is an embarrassment. I don’t even know where to begin. I have never written a review but I am writing this out of the goodness of my heart so no one else wastes their time and $$ on this joke.
The only reason I gave one star is because I couldn’t give zero. While the THREE folks (I was the only person in the place!) that made my food and waited on me were nice to me, the conversation they carried in the open air kitchen was rude and abrasive. It took forever to get my food and was poorly prepared with ingredients that were anything but fresh.
I’m not going into detail as I don’t want to waste any more of my life.
Don’t go here

If I could give this place no stars I truly would. I’m not going to write a long ass review but their food is awful. Bottom line. I should’ve walked out when I saw it wasn’t Vietnamese owned but I gave it the benefit of the doubt and got let down. Don’t waste your money. Don’t try their banh mi. And definitely don’t get the phở cause it will taste like you put a shit load of salt in your mouth and then a sour patch kid pissed in your mouth to help you wash it down. Like really it’s not even the right noodle. I’m so hurt. I was so excited. Like… why???

Why oh why did I not look at the reviews on Unilocal first?! I wasted money on trying to get a decent lunch. It was my first time trying phở and I was very disappointed. I was so irritated that I made a mental note to write a review on this place as soon as I got the chance. I don’t want to be long winded but they started completely wrong. A young gentleman took my order and I paid. He then disappeared. Walking out of the store and came back 10 minutes later to retrieve a bookbag. 5 min after he leaves, a woman appears. She quickly rinses her hands with water at the sink and proceeds to start making my food. I do not play those type of games. I asked her if she washed her hands, she lied and said yes. But said that she would wash them again. Ugh!
On to the food. I ordered a spring roll along with my phở. It was bland and they gave it to me raw. They never asked me if I preferred it fried or «raw». The phở was less than basic to me and tasted sour and bland. I don’t know how it’s usually prepared but it was served with the veggies on the side along with a brown sauce and a deep orange reddish sauce. Meanwhile, why I’m trying to eat, there were flies all over. Major turn off. Wont be back.

I don’t want to waste too many words on a place so terrible.
Vietnamese food is typically some of the simplest and tastiest food you can eat. It is a favorite of mine and I was pleased when I heard that a local restaurant was offering it.
Too bad the food is disgusting and terrible. They don’t do honest takes on traditional items, or fancy takes. They just do disgusting.
I called and asked for a refund and the guy who picked up the phone when I called seemed surprised and had the nerve to tell me that most people tell him how good the food is.
I should have looked at Unilocal first before I wasted money eating here.
I hope this restaurant dies quickly so I new one with responsible ownership takes its place.

Since I grew up eating Phở made by my friend’s Vietnamese mother I know what it should taste like, and this Phở tasted nothing like actual Phở. It was poorly prepared and had pieces of fat, and the ends of vegetables floating around in the tasteless broth. I now understand why it was so cheap. This restaurant’s version of Phở is a disgrace to the actual dish. Every person I see standing outside of the restaurant gets a dissuasive comment from me about the low quality food. The owners should stick to what they know which is books, coffee, and ice cream.

Bad. Just unbelievably bad. I didn’t want to write a negative review but I tried this place three times each bowl of «phở» was worst than the last. I desperately want a good (or at least edible) phở option in mt airy and this just isn’t it.
They get every element of phở wrong. The broth is greasy and flavorless and is served lukewarm. Has a sickly aftertaste. Just gross. Last time I went they didn’t have the correct spoons either. The noodles were flatter and wider than other phở places. Two of my three visits this meant that the noodles were almost completely undercooked and harder. On another visit they were completely overcooked and basically disintegrated in the spoon. The beef is bland although not as bad as the other elements… I could go on but won’t. This place is so Disappointing. Phở in mt airy is a great idea but they don’t seem to be trying. They will get no more chances from me. Looks like I will continue to make trips to Washington ave.

I guess the main thing to know before going here is that this place is not Vietnamese owned and there are no Vietnamese people making the food. Not saying you have to be Vietnamese to make this food, but uh, you have to know how to make it at all.
The bread for the Vietnamese hoagie was so hard that I couldn’t bite into it. So I just ate the inside.
They have two store fronts, one for Vietnamese food and one for a Burger place, but all the food is cooked inside the burger place. Hopefully this is their way of transitioning out of Vietnamese food into American food because their fries were pretty good.
The food was really cheap, so I guess you get what you paid for. Then again, I’ve paid way less for way better food.

I don’t know what the hell this place just sold me. I ordered a bahn mi and got a stale roll with a mess of weird orange stuff and not much else. I took one bite and spit it out. Threw out the thing and walked to wawa. Wasn’t even worth trying to get the $ 5 back.

I was excited about the notion of local Phở and came here with a friend a few months ago.
First: this is NOT Phở. Not even remotely close to resembling Phở!
I eat at many Vietnamese restaurants, often family-​run and owned, and have had authentic Phở. So I speak from experience!
As other reviewers note — the broth is horrible, salty and clearly not a Phở broth. Mine had whole peppercorns in it that I accidentally bit into multiple times and it was awful. Not to mention that I had asked for the Chicken Phở and instead it was made with dark turkey meat ! Horrifying !!!
Asked for a Vietnamese Iced coffee and the owner had to go down the street to the book store/​ice cream joint that he also owns in order to make me a coffee, which was NOT Vietnamese iced coffee in the slightest.
Please take heed to all the 1 star reviews; this is utterly not worth your time or your $. Not to mention your appetite !

I don’t normally give Unilocal reviews, let alone bad ones, but I felt like I had to make an exception for this place.
When it comes to food, I usually try to give the benefit of the doubt if it is somewhat adequate and not absolutely horrible. Unfortunately, the phở here was horrendous. As a Vietnamese food enthusiast, the phở here doesn’t even come close to the authentic Vietnamese phở restaurants that are scattered across the city. However, this is probably one of, if not the, only restaurants in this area that serve phở. Even as a regular bowl of noodle soup, it is not good at all. The broth was extremely dark, filthy, and sour, the noodles had an odd texture, and the meat was way too thick to digest easily. You are better off going to an Asian supermarket and buying a pack of instant phở to make at home yourself.
Do not be misled by the restaurant’s name. Not recommended at all.

I avoided this place since they opened because I heard bad reviews. I decided to give them a chance. Unfortunately I should have listened to the other reviewers.
We ordered two spring rolls and 2 vegetarian banh mi. They asked if we wanted them heated which we declined because typically banh mi are served cold (or more like room temp.) I took one bite of he banh mi and realized that the sandwiches has been pre-​made and refrigerated. The bread was inedible. It was so tough that I truly could not eat it. We ate the tofu and vegetables that were inside because we were very hungry. The spring rolls were ok.
I wonder if the owner/“chef” has ever had Vietnamese food. A banh mi is simply a sandwich with baguette, some veggies, sometimes meat, and usually a spicy mayo. This is a very easy thing to make quickly by prepping the ingredients and using fresh bread. When I pick something out of a refrigerated case at a fast food place I don’t expect to have fresh bread, but this is supposed to be a restaurant. I would rather eat a hoagie from Wawa than the sandwich I had at MANH.
When we went inside to pay I mentioned that the bread was inedible and they might want to try using fresh bread and the man I spoke just sort of shrugged. They didn’t charge us for the sandwiches, so I’ll give them that.

I really wanted to love this place, but it seems like they’re just not trying. The banh mi was pre-​made, probably the day before, and the bread was so soggy. It would be so easy to make it fresh to order!
The Vietnamese coffee was great, though.

I stopped in for a banh mi on a whim and it wasn’t the best.
Quantity wise, you get a huge portion for $ 5, however, based on my other banh mi experiences in the past, Manh just doesn’t do justice to the medium of sandwiches.
The space itself has a cool and the laid back feel to it and it seems like it would be nice to hang out for people watching or just enjoying a low key time. I hope that their food offerings improve in the near future.

I think that a chef can legitimately prepare a cuisine that is not from their own cultural background. That being said, a Vietnamese chef (or even any chef really) would have made this place’s food much better.
I recently went for dinner and got the vegetarian phở, a dish I know very well. Unfortunately, all main components of the dish: broth, noodles, and tofu were all incorrectly prepared and did not taste good. The broth did not have any of the richness of the true dish, nothing close to how good a vegetarian variation can be. The noodles were overcooked, tasteless, and the wrong noodle entirely. The tofu, which looked homemade (which is great!), was not cooked properly. I believe it was what caused me an illness later that evening.
It was a huge disappointment and just simply bad. I don’t care how much of a ‘deal’ it may be — I’m happy to spend $ 9 on a real and delicious food that won’t make me sick.

I was desperate for a Phở place within 15 – 20 minutes of Roxborough. After reading the reviews, I was aware that this wasn’t the best place to get it, but not the worst. Um, yes, it was the worst. I’ll start with the positive. The bread they use for the Bahn Mi was very good. It wasn’t the typical viet roll, but excellent. I asked for a menu, and the half-​asleep guy behind the counter said they didn’t have one. They do have a menu board, but they were out of half the stuff. I got two Bahn Mi, a chicken and a beef (they didn’t have pork). Now the beef was a semi-​decent beef hoagie, but not anything like a Bahn Mi. The chicken was in chunks and had hardly anything on it besides the chicken. No pickled vegetables, no pâté. Both sandwich’s just had a the meat, a dab of cilantro and thinly sliced cucumber. Oh, and some kind of chili aioli. Again, the bread was the best part.
I got the beef phở, they were again out of most of the others. The «cook» made a half-​ass explanation of what meat they put in the beef Phở when I asked. He said tripe, but they didn’t have any. So what kind of beef was in the beef Phở? Some top round or something. No meatballs, bean sprouts or anything else that adds to wht makes Phở great! I got my soup to go and I was almost embarrassed when I saw the mess of what I bought. The soup lacked flavor and had the wrong kind of noodles. The noodles just made a complete gluten-​y mess in the bowl. The clam-​shell container of toppings was ridic. Two small limes and a few small leaves of wilted basil. Usually you get sricacha, but they gave a container of chili garlic sauce as well as hoison.
The «cook» pretty much treated me like I was interuppting his conversation about people acting up at a poetry slam. He took a good 15 min to put the damn soup in a container. The sandwich’s were pre-​made and he had stuck them in a bag before doing anything else. If you run a basic viet soup and sandwhich place, please don’t be a hipster D.B. to your customers and actually have what you say you have on your 2 item menu.

Pros: Low price, large portions, simple menu so making a decision is not difficult.
Cons: Food prep area appeared unclean, as did the tables (one of spoon was stuck to the napkin at the table we sat at.) Slow service and they forgot part of our fairly simple order. Worst of all, the Phở is the least flavorful Phở I’ve ever had in my life. So bland. My little kids like it, but kids like bland food. My husband and I had to add a ton of Sriracha just to make it palatable. The chicken Phở was greasy and had bones. I thought the vegetarian Phở was the best of the three flavors.
I really feel bad about giving this place a bad review. I live in the neighborhood and I want it to succeed and I want to have a cheap noodle house to have lunch at. But to be honest, the sanitary levels concern me, and even at this price, the food was so meh it wasn’t worth it to me.

In short, it’s the best five buck lunch in Mt. Airy. I mean, c’mon, is there anything better on a cold day than hot phở? Than that fragrant broth, rice noodles, and thin slices of beef? Than mixing in a little bit of this and that condiment so that you feel kind of like a sorcerer before your first bite, and if you got the balance right, then you know you are one? Manh Noodle Shop has got that number.
And that number is three: they serve one version each of beef, chicken (shredded), and vegetarian (mushroom base) phở. So, as other reviews point out, this isn’t like the stuff on Washington, where you can pimp your order with tripe, meatballs, tendon, etc. If you’re expecting that caliber of soup, you might be inclined to call the stuff at Manh «faux phở.» But if you’re not pish posh about it, not looking for the world’s most authentic phở made by some 100-​year-​old Vietnamese grandma, then Manh can and does hit the spot. Their versions of phở are unquestionably fresh, tasty, and well-​balanced.
And, though the soups are well-​balanced, the restaurant is not. In addition to the phở, they also offer American soups (not made in-​house) as well as pastries and other spillover from their older, darling sibling, Read and Eat. Unfortunately, these things distract from what should be the mission of a phở joint… phở. They should scrap these other nonsense items and devote more time to perfecting their phở trifecta, possibly add some banh mi into the mix, and maybe even hire that 100-​year-​old Vietnamese grandma everybody’s talking about. Word on the street is that she makes the most amazing soup.

Let’s start with two things: we love Vietnamese food and search it out wherever we go. We have been known to drive an hour round trip for a bowl of Phở or Bun or a Banh mi. We have tried everyone in center city, West Philly, Willow Grove and Norristown AND we have been waiting for 15 years for some good Vietnamese to come to Mt Airy. I even tried to get the owners of Vietnam in Chinatown to open one here. So we were especially excited when we saw the sign «MANH coming soon» taped to the old Infusion spot a month ago.
Went for lunch and walked in at noon with only 3 other tables occupied. The place looks a little tired and dirty with the old terrazzo floor exposed and not a lot of renovation for the new restaurant. But we could live with that. The 4 of us ordered 2 vegetarian, 1 chicken and 1 beef. There were no utensils out or cups of water. We asked and it took a bit to get that. Service seemed confused and disjointed. One vegetarian came out. Then our chicken was delivered to the wrong table and that customer had to get up and ask what it was. The server then took it from her table and gave it to us. Then the beef came out and there were no noodles. It took me a few minutes to realize it. Sent it back and he added noodles and put it in microwave. When it got to us the noodles were completely uncooked. So sad
The Phở lacked any depth of flavor. The vegetarian was actually the best flavor with a good mushroom base. The beef lacked all the fantastic depth and brightness of good Phở. The chicken was not that great with shredded chicken throughout. The «small» $ 5 bowls were huge with all the right condiments served alongside.
We were so disappointed and really hope they will work on it, get some recipe tips from the great Phở all around here and figure out the service. We really want this to succeed so I don’t have to drive to 11^th or 16^th and Washington Ave like I did today.
We will give it another chance and see how it goes.