Jermaine E.
Yelp
May is Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, so once a week this entire month, I'm going to show love to my local AAPI owned restaurants and leave a review!
TL; DR: 4.5/5. Come for the banh mi! Nice broth for the banh canh cha ca! Friendly owners. Will be back for another banh mi in the future!
I love Vietnamese food! Whenever a new spot pops up, it immediately has my attention. I was driving down a hotspot for Vietnamese restaurants in Tampa (Waters Ave) when I passed by Viet Haus. It's a fairly new spot that's been on my radar. I finally decided to check it out, and the interior is bright and inviting. It's a nice, clean restaurant, albeit on the smaller side. A husband and wife team run the establishment, and they were very friendly. The menu is relatively small, but it has the standard fare of banh mi, pho, rice dishes and shaking beef, summer rolls, and boba drinks. They have other drinks sugh as sugar cane juice, pennywort drink, lemonade, and vietnamese coffee. One dish that caught my eye was the banh canh cha ca. The broth is a chicken base, and it came with fried fish patties and these noodles. Maybe they were udon noodles, but they were slightly chewier. It was a nice chew. The broth had a bit of a seafood taste to it. Kind of a hint of a fish flavor to it, but I loved it! It was a nice, clean broth that I can see myself coming back for.
I also had to get a banh mi because it was there. Lol Just saying. Banh mi dac biet on the menu? Yes please! The sandwich comes with all the classics. Mayo, pate, cucumber, cilantro, jalapeno, pickled daikon, and pickled carrots. It also came with their house sauce. Their combination came with a vietnamese ham (cha lua) and pork belly. Oh.. man This banh mi was amazing! The baguette it came on was toasted hard. The roof of my mouth was getting destroyed, but it was worth it! That pork belly was everything you love about pork belly, but that sauce brought everything together. I do like the taste of the pickled veggies, so compliments to whoever made them. A little extra pate would have been nice, but I know for next time. The price is on the higher side compared to other spots in the area, but the flavor is there. I personally always felt like some of these Vietnamese spots could have charged a bit more if they really wanted to, so it's no biggie to me. Make that money! If I had to give it a ranking, I'd say it's a solid 4.5, which round up to a 5 here. For a newer restaurant, this is a great start!