Com Tam Thuan Kieu Restaurant

Worst service ever. If you want grown men to act like children and give you attitude right off the bat, then this place is perfect. Can’t even ask for a box without rolling their eyes.

gotta say for the price, the food is good and well portioned. a bit of everything and so many combinations of the broken rice dishes that it can be overwhelming to read through the menu

Actually my favorite place in the SGV for cm tm. It’s less crowded than the one on Valley Blvd next to Hawaii Market. The service is quick, especially if you speak Viet or Canto. Not every combo is on the menu but you can customize to your heart’s desires. Their broken rice is yummy, but so is their bánh hi, which looks a lot like stitched together vermicelli. If you don’t know what you like, get their 10 item one. It’s like a giant sampler with different meats, rolls, etc. and one of my favorite items is the ch, which is like a light meatloaf. Those who don’t eat pork, tread lightly here. It’s super pork heavy. They do have shrimp, chicken, and beef options, but you’ll have to be careful since they integrate pork into a lot of their recipes, especially the egg rolls. The other thing? The jalapeños they make there is FRESH. So if you love spicy, you’ll get a kick out of those.

Do not eat here service is bad. They have their kids hanging out there like it’s their house. We ordered take out and they forgot to give us the meats, so all we got was rice and lettuce.

Good rice plates. Seems like a new owner from a year ago. Charbroiled pork and egg rolls were fresh. Although the pork seemed precooked (not hot) it was still good.

If hole-​in-​the-​wall and Vietnamese in the same sentence makes you feel some type of way, then Com Tam Thuan Kieu is for you. First of all, they serve these huge broken rice plates with your choice meat. Let’s be real, the portions are enough to feed two people but you’ll crush the entire plate because of how good it tastes. If rice isn’t your thing, they also have the best Bun Bo Hue in the valley (well, maybe not THE best but definitely gives a run for the money). You might have trouble communicating to the waitstaff since none of them speak English, but thats what hand gestures are for. Oh yeah, and its so hole in the wall that the dining tables are communal so you’ll be seated next to a family of four who also doesn’t speak English. Why do I keep coming back? The food is too damn good for the money.

This place is deplorable. The service is really bad, the dining area and kitchen are filthy! There is even an ashtray/​smoking container right outside the entrance. If you even complain about anything, the manager/​owner will argue back and yell at you, roll her overly frosty eye-​shadowed eyes at you.
They can’t decide if they want to be a restaurant or a sports bar, constantly blaring the two TV’s at high volume. I checked out the kitchen from the back and was appalled to see how filthy it was. The «cha» or vietnamese meatloaf are stacked on top of each other sitting out uncovered. There was trash everywhere and the cooks were handling the food with their bare hands.
This place is disgusting. Take care of your health and AVOID!

I’ve been coming here since last year and every time I come, there is only one thing on the menu that I order. And that is…*drum rolls*… Number 104! It’s their famous house special clear noodle dish.
Number 104 (Tieu Nam Vang): This bowl of deliciousness consisted of quail eggs, shrimp, pork liver, green onions, cilantro, minced pork, fried garlic, and glass noodles. The simple broth stock is made of boiled pork bones with a mixture of salty and sweet. The broth is light in flavor but not bland. The meat is fall-​off-​the-​bone and the taste is exquisite.
Although I’ve been here at least ten times within the past year, I can’t get myself to order anything else off the menu. I hear their com tham (rice dishes) is amazing though. There are several locations within the San Gabriel Valley; however, my favorite for the noodles is at this one.
Price: For number 104, its around $ 7-​$ 8
Parking: The lot out front gets packed around the noon time so I’d recommend parking on the street or right around back.
Venue: Pretty large venue that would seat at least 60.
Service: I believe this is a family owned restaurant and the people here are very friendly. Although service can be a bit slow due to the demands of customers, they always try to get to everybody.

The service is okay. But, the food is awesome! The Bun Can is really good as well as the Bun Giao. Their Broken Rice dishes are pretty good as well.

I decided to try the $ 4 special all day– red rice with chicken leg despite this place having over half of the menu dedicated to broken rice.
The dish came with a big portion of red rice and a piece of dried over-​fried chicken leg. Good thing the rice was moist so I shredded the dried leg into little pieces and ate it with the rice. My friend got the broken rice with charbroiled pork, shredded pork, and shrimp paste. I had a taste of it and thought it was just alright.
The place didn’t feel too clean, and I don’t think I would be back even if the food is any good.

Best restaurant for Vietnamese broken rice with any type of meat.
When eating here do not eat any other item beside the com tam or broken rice in english.
Table are kinda dirty because waiters are in a rush.
BTW be use to bounce passing the food. Asian restaurants are not the type of service Chili’s or IHOP etc.
Try to say thank you in Vietnamese when here or say something in viet. It helps along the way and would make the people here appreciate that you accept the culture.

Broken rice is my favorite Vietnamese dish and Com Tam does it right! I had realized after coming here that most Vietnamese restaurants outside of 626 don’t serve broken rice so I was excited. We came on a weekday for lunch and there was a wait for seating. I expected it because Com Tam is pretty popular with the locals. The wait wasn’t too bad, maybe 10 minutes.
Com Tam makes legitimate Vietnamese food — I just love the texture of their broken rice; the rice is soft but not mushy and holds it’s structure when you pour fish sauce all over. I also love that they have sooo many combinations to choose from. It took me a good few minutes to look through all the combinations and then another few minutes to choose which one I wanted. All the dishes are decently priced (~$ 7). I thought about getting the 10 meat combo for $ 12 (prices went up a bit recently), but realized just how much food that was! My goal is to get that the next time I visit Com Tam. Oh yeah, they also give out complementary broth, and It goes great with broken rice!

Cam on~
Been coming here for years, never disappointed in the food as it is always reliable in its taste. All items are replaceable and every dish is customizable.
It’s a very casual seating arrangement with the view of San Gabriel Blvd in the windows. TV’s are always on so you can either catch the game or catch up on Vietnamese soaps. If service is what you seek, don’t come in. They are fast, to the point and will get you fed in a very timely manner. I personally appreciate this as we are usually hangry by the time we arrive.
Most popular is the 10 item dish, it gives a bit of everything from their menu for your sampling pleasures! Grilled item are not dripping in oil, nuc mon are always provided, noodles are al dente and soups are delicious. Our personal noodle favorite is the dry mix of glass and egg noodle with pork bone soup on the side.
They also have a selection of pastries at the cashier, grab their fresh made rice cake or sometimes the flavorful coconut macaroons for a drive home dessert.

10 items for around $ 10.49 is a great deal. Menu has endless combinations of those 10 items with most of them about $ 6.99 with about 3 to 4 of those 10 items.
Beef roll isn’t really the beef roll with onion inside but just sliced pieces of marinated grilled beef, which is fine but not what i had expected. (Number 32 kinda a misinterpretation). Charboiled chicken was grilled to perfection with skin on, steamed egg cake and pork skin shreds with pickled vegetable complements the broken rice nicely with a dabs of the fish sauce.

I been ordering food to go from this restaurant for years, probably almost 10 years? This place my family and i love eating here when ever we didnt want to cook we always get wither their broken rice dishes or vermicelli dish.
Bun thit nuong cha tom is my fav (vermicelli charboiled pork &shrimp paste :)

Good stuff. Essentially the same thing as Com Tam Thuan Kieu on Valley by Hawaii Supermarket but north a bit and with a little brighter interior. Don’t expect a glamorous dining experience, but if it’s broken rice you’re after, it’s hard to go wrong with their 10 item/​7 item/​whatever item varieties. You can park in the small lot and duke it out w/​the stinky tofu lovers piling into Indian, or do like I did and scoot onto the side of the street.

Let’s cut to the case — you either have a good experience or a bad one. In this case, it was BAD.
This place is known for their broken rice dishes, I am a phonatic, so that was my order, phở. My boyfriend ordered the broken rice dish — #42. Now usually I dont comment on the «presentation» of the food because I dont usually expect 5-​star presence, but when I saw my boyfriend’s plate, I was a bit taken back. The rice was rubbed on the side of the plate, as if the waiter had rice on his fingers & he rubbed it on the side of the plate to get it off. And when I got my phở, I squeezed in my lime & was ready to dig in, JUST TO FIND HAIR IN IT.
When I brought it to the waiter’s attention, his response? «Oh.» That’s right, no apology. And when I finally got the phở, bland! My boyfriend’s dish had rice, pork chop and shrimp paste. His rice was undercooked, meat was so-​so, and shrimp paste was tasteless. Overall, not so great.
In my opinion, I would not recommend coming here. You can come to witness the service & food firsthand, but I wouldn’t want you to waste your time or money.

Order #34 if you want to get full and leave with a happy belly. It comes with charbroiled pork, beef, steamed egg, shredded pork, some cabbage, and a side of soup. Their broken rice is cooked to perfection (not too fluffy and not too wet).
I love their hot tea! It’s perfectly brewed and flavored.

Pretty darn clean for a Vietnamese restaurant!
Don’t hate. I’m a viet– my ethnicity’s restaurants are usually dirty loolol
They’re known for their broken rice.
Which looks like regular rice– but broken down hahha
It tastes lighters and well, funner to eat
Their broken rice plates are pretty yummy but sometimes, just sometimes, their pork or beef is marinated oddly.
Thumbs up for including soup with each rice dish order
Their vermicelli is scrumptious– can’t really go wrong with that dish.
There is plenty of seating, they have their own parking lot and the servers are actually pretty attentive.
Only con? CASH ONLY– but it’s a viet restaurant, it’s expected: P

After my most recent visit I’d have to say my rating is more of a 3.5 stars, but since I’ve enjoyed my other meals here I’ll round up rather than down.
Surprisingly enough, when I come here I usually get their Bun Bo Hue, that is until I discovered Ngu Binh in OC. Yet, I’m not always in OC and sometimes my BBH cravings hit when I’m in the 626 area… Yes I can go to Nha Trang, buuuut I find the BBH broth at Thuan Kieu decently good while their protein offerings are much better than Nha Trang’s dinky/​lame/​lower quality portions IMHO.
However, I’m always struck with a dilemma, a damned-if-I-do-damned-if-I-don’t situation. When I order BBH I want some broken rice because my eating partner’s dish looks good. When I order the broken rice dish I start craving for some spicy soup. I can never win! Well on my most recent trip here I decided to screw it and get myself the broken rice with grilled porkchop and steamed egg, reasoning with myself that they give patrons soup if they order rice.
Soup comes out and it’s tasty, but missing the little piece of meat they used to grace us with not too long ago. I mean is it that cost effective to withhold a tiny nub of meat from us?
My rice plate came out and it was okay, tasty –seasoned well, but the pork chop itself was pretty fatty so I didn’t have as much meat to eat compared to what it seemed like when just looking at it. And the rice was somewhat undercooked with harder kernels. come on~ you’re a rice plate restaurant! Get it together!
Overall, I kind of wished for the BBH during my meal, but you can’t beat the price for a plate of rice, pork chop, steamed egg loaf, veggies and soup for under $ 6. I’ll keep coming back unless they do something really heinous in sanitation or get more stingy…