Sidestreet Pho

Sidestreet Pho is one of my favorite restaurants in Alameda. Vietnamese comfort food. When I'm not in the mood for Pho, I love X4 Crispy Rice Noodles. -- it full of mixed proteins and veggies with the best sauce ever. You will have enough for leftovers too! My friend ordered the chicken porridge and I love that it comes with the ultimate Chinese donut to dip in the porridge. Family owned and wonderful food!

Mmmmyummm! Still thinking about the amazingly delicious chicken porridge here!! So many flavors all living their best life in my mouth lol.. chicken, green onions, fried shallots, broken rice, pepper.. I could taste each flavor and them together enhanced in this porridge - honestly the best porridge I've ever had and my picky Vietnam-raised parents also agreed! So definitely order the porridge here!The menu is quite broad with honestly so many of my favorite Vietnamese dishes that it was hard to decide on this first visit; the porridge is the hero dish for me personally. The other items we ordered (crispy egg rolls, pho tai, pork broken rice ) were ok but I likely would rather try other menu items on my next visit. The beef in the pho tai was fairly fatty/chewy which isn't my preference and while the soup was good, it was oilier/ fattier than I like. Similarly the pork on the rice dish was more fatty than I like also. Sharing this experience based on my personal preference for folks who also prefer leaner cuts but it is a traditional style and happily enjoyed by my parents who like fattier cuts. The broken rice was perfectly cooked and memorably moist fluffy. I also liked they provided plenty of pickled veggies.Restaurant is very nicely decorated and remarkably efficiently set up for the small space. The service, food and drinks were prompt, efficient and attentive. Really enjoyable experience and I look forward to returning regularly as I really liked the menu and service is great!They have street parking and two dog friendly outside tables!

Normally this place is good for your slightly pricey vietnamese food. However, because it was open on New Years Day and likely didn't have experience with high volume, the experience was super disappointing. I ordered a pickup order -- with a pickup time of 6:15pm. I arrived on time and was told food was going to be delayed 10-20 minutes. This is a lot, but given the traffic, I was fine to wait. 30 minutes later, still no food. I ask again about the wait time and am told another 15 minutes. This is now telling me they never started the food prep. I wait. Another 15 minutes pass and now there's no update/estimate on the meal.Meanwhile several others had come in after me for pickups and their dishes were completed. I had been the only person who had been waiting for their dish for 1hr.I ended up cancelling it because I had no idea when my order was actually going to get fulfilled while I waited inside the restuarant for almost 1hr from the original pickup time.Unfortunately, this has colored my otherwise good experiences with the restaurant. Go when it's a for-sure not going to be busy, they don't know how to handle volume. Note for the management: they should turn down pickup orders/delivery when they're backed up vs. have people experience this.

7:30pm on a Friday night. The wait time was estimated at 30-45 minutes. There is open seating outside, since I am dining alone I asked if I could sit outside and they agreed. It's a little chilly outside, but as an Alaskan transplant, it's nothing I can't handle. Took about 20 minutes for my food to arrive. The server brought it out was very kind. Pho was super hot, ribeye was perfectly tender. I got some spring rolls and the peanut sauce was really good. The presentation is a little silly but you know. Everyone has their thing. I can see why there's a line, but not sure I'd be willing to wait 45 minutes for a table. Maybe next time I'll get on the waitlist before coming down.

Sooooooo good. Best I ever had. Fast service. Clean environment. Flavors were immaculate omg I went back twice in one week chefs kiss!

One of my favorite lunch spots in Alameda especially when the season finally gets chilly. I recommend either their bun bo hue or pho dac biet. They're pretty good for the area. I'm not going to compare it to South Bay. Anyway, the service was decent from ordering to paying. The restaurant isn't spacious so you'll have to make do OR use their outdoor seatings. Parking is a pain so good luck!

I think this is going to be my new pho place. I enjoyed the atmosphere I enjoyed the cleanliness of the place I enjoyed the thoroughness of the servers they were attentive they checked on us it was great experience. I was there with a co-worker for lunch about 2 weeks ago had shrimp pho with no noodles extra veggies which was a little pricey but it was so good I love that cinnamon that's in the bra especially on a cold rainy day and I was on the brink of getting sick so it was perfect. They also had vegetarian spring rolls which were so good the peanut sauce was good at a little chilly oil Sriracha to it great appetizer that's almost a meal. I will definitely go back.

Kids liked their garlic fried chicken wings. They finished their pho. The avocado smoothie was lacking the smoothie texture I prefer. It was more like an avocado icee. I didn't like the cherry in the avocado. The syrup mixed in with my smoothie. Excellent customer service though and the ambiance was very comfy and zen

We love this place. Hai Mi, our server, is amazing. She recommended we try the appetizer since we were not sure what to order. My husband got the shaken beef with garlic noodles, and I got the brisket pho(not pictured because we were so hungry). The food came out quickly. Highly recommended!

We were seated quickly by a very kind hostess. They were great despite how busy it was. We had the wings--crispy, hot, and juicy. The dipping sauce didn't accompany the wings as well I would have hoped. The pho we ordered was pretty tasty and piping hot! It was definitely what we needed on a chilly evening after a long day of travel. I wish that it had a little more umami flavor, but all in all a solid meal just a bit pricey in my opinion.