Nhu Y Restaurant

One of my childhood restaurants growing up! My family dines here for the dishes we can't recreate at home, such as their BBQ rice dishes (Com Tam), vermicelli noodles (bun), and thick noodle soup (banh canh). They have a pretty good selection of shakes as well and Vietnamese Iced Coffee. I go here to get their avocado shake and coconut shake. They used to have a wider selection of shakes but have cut down the menu by half. They have Thai tea and Vietnamese coffee that is decent from surrounding restaurants. Nhu Y is one of the oldest spots on El Cajon Blvd that serves truly authentic Vietnamese food. You know it's authentic when there's a crowd gathered outside the restaurant of Vietnamese people playing games on the table too (lol). They have great food and we have been ordering for a long time so this review was way overdue!

My childhood friend's mom would make Ca Kho for us & I loved it! I have been trying to find a restaurant that serves this & was excited to see that they served it here.We came during lunch time & it was just us dining. However, be aware of the parking since it is in a strip mall. The parking was packed, the spots are extremely tight & the side streets were filled too.They do not serve a variety of pho dishes like the other Vietnamese restaurants I have been to. They only serve a few & concentrate on other Vietnamese cuisines, which was nice to see what else is out there.Pho: Sadly, we did not enjoy this. The broth was super bland, the beef was tough, & the noodles seemed over cooked.Ca Kho: & unfortunately, this was just okay. They do give a generous amount of catfish but the sauce was very sweet which gave it an off putting taste.Service was friendly & food was served quick.

Came here last night with my family since they were craving family style Vietnamese food. We entered the restaurant around 6pm and there were only a few people there. But after 6pm it gets more crowded so be sure to make note of that. In addition, their parking lot shares spaces with another restaurant. It's very small and the spaces are very narrow. Limited street parking as well. If you have a large party, try to all go in one car to make parking easier. As soon as we were seated we were given our menus which were in a laminated booklet with several photos and names in Vietnamese and English. To drink we got hot tea (very delicious flavor), soursop smoothie (it was more on the sweeter side than my great uncle preferred), and sugar cane juice (large size, so sweet and delicious. Refreshing...some how creamy and citrusy as well). There were 5 of us so we ordered: "Common Dinner" aka Com Phan, it consists of a soup, a vegetable dish, and a salty braised meat dish or fried fish, and white rice. - Canh Chua Ca Loc/ Hot Sour Soup with Catfish: This was on the sweeter side, even though we mentioned to them to make it less sweet. They had big chunks of okra, which to me, was unpleasant to eat in such a large size. The okra was chopped up to the size of my pinky. I liked the elephant ears (spongy looking celery), celery, tomato, and bean sprouts. The pineapple should have been enough to sweeten the broth. 5/10 eat this with rice! - Stir Fry Gai Lan with beef: sooo delicious! Perfectly cooked and the beef was very tasty. The sauce I didn't really care for. Tasted good with white rice. 9/10- Ca Chien/ Fried Fish: This Fish was like it was only for one person! It was just the middle till the tail. It was perfectly crispy though and the fish was flaky. If you dip it in nuoc mam and eat it with pickled veggies it's just divine. Watch out for a few of the bones though! 8/10- Ca Kho To/Fish Braised in Claypot: Omg, the braised sauce was just so incredible. I loved the heavy rich flavor and drizzled it all over my rice. Scraping the bowl to get every bit of the goodness. The fish in it was good but lots of bones (so watch out!). 8/10We also ordered an appetizer of fried frog legs. I thought it was pretty plain, too much batter, and I think they chopped it up because I had lots of little bones to spit out! I didn't know there were so many bones in a frog before, I actually thought there were only 4 main ones. I probably wouldn't get this again. Maybe would taste good with a beer and dip it into fish sauce? Overall, it was a satisfying dinner. I enjoyed what options were available for me. Since I went with my family they LOVE fish, so those were the main foods we ordered. And personally, I don't like fish because of the bones which is why my reviews for them might not be high praising. If you ever go, I highly recommend drinking the sugar cane juice with citrus. It's so refreshing and if you get a large size, it will come out in a big to go container. Quite hilarious, but great to share with the table.

I haven't been to Little Saigon in San Diego before, but Yelp says this is promising, let's go. 3.5 STARS SATURDAYPARKING (2 stars)Parking is definitely tough to find and in some cases way sketch. Some zombies cruising here, and taking sidewalk naps outside the nearby fish market. But the mini mall attached has parking in there too. SERVICE (5 stars)We were the only Caucasians in there. The place was 90% full = young families and middle aged friends grabbing lunch. But service was still fast and super nice. (Very good broken English - I wish I knew some Vietnamese phrases)FOOD (4.5 stars)Tofu Ban MiI wasn't very hungry when I was ordering, so I got tofu bahn mi. Delicious. Simple. Fantastic roll. Crunchy large cut veg. Large slices of softer fried tofu. The rest of my party are carnivores, and their dishes looked amazing. Their reviews were all, "Fresh. Delicious. Salty goodness. Lots of food - can't finish." And, at the same time, they all wanted each others order. Pork buhn miBbq buhn Sugar cane shrimp buhn mi. They would all get again no doubt. MOST CUSTOMERS were having some kind of hot pot in the middle of the table with tons of veg and noodles. INTERIOR / LOCATION (2.5 stars)This is the kind of place that you have to make peace with as, here for the food. NOT first, second, or even 10th date location. You're comfortable with your friends to come here - and you all come to grub. Bathroom is eh... serviceable. Storage of some dry food items in the seating area isn't uncommon, but some people might find pallets of groceries odd. (This space has giant ceilings and huge murals on the walls)PRICE Worth it. $13 ~ for noodles$7 for bahn mi (All styles)OVERALLI would definitely come here again to pick up food to go. It's nothing special to be in the restaurant unless trying out hot pot. (Maybe with a regular customer or someone who speaks Vietnamese). Today's addict zombies cruising around the sidewalks generally avoid people.

My go to Viet restaurant for some authentic Vietnamese family meal. We ordered course meal for 3 people and also some fried frog legs tossed in butter sauce. They have variety of family meal from 2 to more than 10 people. The fried frog legs was delicious. The restaurant also has sugar canes and coconut water. Unfortunately, when we came, they were out. The server was nice and friendly. Food came out quick. Hard to find parking so be prepared to look around. There's street parking not a lot available.For 3 people meal:Caramelized and braised catfishFried fish with some pickled carrots Sweet sour soupStirred fry beef with mustard green

Someone had recommended this place to me and I just had to try it out.It was funny being the only Caucasian in this place, they thought I was there to pick up some deliveries for DoorDash. LOLAfter being seated it felt like the whole restaurant customer base was staring at me. :-) Really enjoyed the food! And was pleasantly surprised how well the bun rieu and the bun bo hue were. Also ordered the Nem Nuong Cuon (grilled pork) that were packed with vibrant flavors, fresh herbs, and went well with the garlic fish sauce.Ended the meal with a freshly made sugarcane drink with kumquat.For sure will return when in this part of the valley!

This is my new spot! I have the same dish at dozens of restaurants. The quarantine + economic Downturn has caused a lot of my usual Vietnamese spots to alter recipes or sub iceberg lettuce for Romain and it makes a huge difference. First night I pull into the tiniest parking lot ever. There's an older gentleman on a karaoke mic singing all the Viet classics, with pretty good pitch too. It was nice seeing folks justsitting around having a good time laughing and celebrating just being together.

Gio van hoa phuc vu khah nha hag nay nen xemLai nhe. Sau nay cug chag ghe den nua . Nha hang viet o my bay gio buoc khach phai ngoi ban nao(dù bàn dơ , de tay len rích chich) .ko le gio di an tra tien ngoi an khong duoc chon cho sach se de ngoi an ha troi . Bo tien Den an ma cho ngoi an tu te sach se cug ko dc chon. Sao riet thay nha hag viet coi khach ko ra gi ca.Bad service . So dirty. Never come back

We, the party of 5, came to try Vietnamese food on Memorial Day. We ordered 3 number one special broken rice dish and 1fried beef noodles, 1 fried seafood noodles. All are really bad, over cooked, not fresh, no flavors. The waiter was rude. Restaurant wasn't clean. Restroom was too old, not clean. Never comeback again

Very bad service, be rude to customers, badly prepared food, everything is salty, never go back again