Derek W.
Yelp
While I was enjoying (or trying to, at least lol) my pizza from Caffe D'arte, my co-worker decided to go across and get a couple things from Bambuza before our flight back home to SoCal. At first, she saw me eating the pizza and was considering getting something there. However, I told her I didn't like the pizza as much and suggested she might find something better at Bambuza, which I recall can have long lines at certain times.
After I finished my pizza, I saw her sitting at a table with an iced coffee and a meal in a takeout box. Being unsatisfied with the pizza I had just consumed minutes earlier, I decided to see if there was anything on the menu that could help me forget about that pathetic pizza pie.
On both sides of the line, you can pick up snacks or even some refrigerated eats like sushi. I thought about getting sushi, but I wanted to try something from the menu shown on the TV monitors high above the order counter.
The Saigon Combination caught my eye only because I didn't know what that consisted of. And even so, they also had Ribeye Steak pho, which is actually cheaper than the Chicken pho?? You don't say! I was thinking about a banh mi, but the Ribeye Steak pho reminded me of Rare Steak & Brisket pho, which I had in Long Beach late last year and absolutely LOVED! However, I made it a point to ask what the Saigon Combination was before deciding on that or the Ribeye Steak pho.
Actually, first things first, I wanted to get some snacks. I didn't see any prices on the snacks, but I grabbed a bag of cashews and a bag of pecans to bring home, thinking they'd be about $15 in total.
When I went up to the register to ask about Saigon Combination, the cashier told me it was chicken, pork, and a third item that I can't remember what it was, but it didn't exactly appeal to me, so I chose the Ribeye Steak pho on top of the two bags of snacks. The pho is about $20 with tax, so I was expecting to pay less than $40 in total. However, the total came to over $50! What?! Turns out only one bag is $15, not two, which completely smacked me by surprise!
I decided to give up the bag of pecans, which brought my total to less than $40. I was disappointed that one bag would cost so much, and wait until the end of the review for a kicker.
After I placed my order, I asked how long I'd have to wait for the bowl of rice noodle soup to be ready. It was around 10 minutes before I heard a server call out my name. Once I heard my name, I stood up and was about to walk over to pick up the tray holding the pho, but she told me I could stay put, and she'd bring it over to me.
On the tray was the bowl of noodle soup, a spoon, fork, chopsticks, hoisin sauce, chili sauce, and a small bag of accoutrements. The accourtrements included bean sprouts, jalapeno peppers, basil, and a lime wedge. The hoisin sauce, chili sauce, and chopsticks were sealed, so I put them in my carry-on to take home with me. I used everything else, dumping all the contents of the small bag on top of the soup after taking a few sips of the broth.
How was the soup? The broth was quite tasty, but I thought the flavor could have been stronger. Same with the ribeye. The noodles were nicely cooked, so there's that. A trio of customers sat at the opposite end of the table, and they were impressed with how good my bowl of pho looked. Yes, it was a good bowl, but it wasn't 5 star good by any means. However, for airport food, it's not unreasonably overpriced, and I would recommend trying it if you have plenty of time to kill before your flight. In my case, I still had plenty of time left because my flight was delayed by 40 minutes!
My co-worker ordered a takeout meal and an Iced Vietnamese Coffee. I don't remember what she said about the meal itself because she was planning to save it for later. However, I do remember she said the coffee was pretty sweet, and she couldn't adjust the sweetness of the coffee. She's Vietnamese too, so if that isn't saying something, I don't know what else will.
Since I didn't try anything that she ordered, I'm not factoring those into my rating. For my Ribeye Steak pho, I would rate it a 3.75 out of 5, which would round up to 4 out of 5.
Now remember when I said to wait until the end of this review for the kicker? I went to Pike & Pine by Hudson to pick up a couple more snacks for the flight home. I saw those exact same bags of cashews/pecans there, and they were only $11 or $12. Still expensive, but I wonder if this would qualify as price gouging?? Charging $3 to $4 more than others for the *exact* same product! For that reason alone, I will be penalizing one star. Still not bad overall. At least it was better than the pizza from Caffe D'arte, and now I know why the line here at Bambuza is longer than the line over there.
