Daniel B.
Yelp
My wife and I had to run an errand at Ponce City Market ("PCM") and decided to get dinner at Vietvana. Originally, we were going to go to one of our favorite restaurants at PCM, H&F Burger, until we saw Vietvana pop up on Yelp. We didn't realize they had a new, third location here. We've been to Vietvana's original location in Avondale Estates (https://bit.ly/3pEK5tv; opened August 2019) and I've been to the second location in Midtown (https://bit.ly/3hHl50k; opened February 2020). My experience at this location is consistent with the others - I enjoyed it. My wife did too. The TL;DR version of this review is: "We were craving pho and this hit the spot. We were happy."
Vietvana serves "authentic" Vietnamese food. The restaurant has a counter in a new section of PCM's Food Hall next to another new joint, Nani's Piri Piri Chicken. Vietvana and Nani's are the first tenants to occupy the new Food Hall nook at PCM. I didn't think about it until we visited, but I think Vietvana is the first restaurant to serve Vietnamese food / pho at PCM since the market's opening in August 2014. It's kind of surprising.
With this comparatively smaller food hall operation, Vietvana at PCM understandably has a slimmed-down menu compared to the full-fledged Vietvana restaurants in Avondale Estates and Midtown. During our visit, they offered five appetizers (three of which were rolls), pho, six smoothies, four milk teas with four topping options (e.g., tapioca pearls), and Vietnamese coffee.
What I like about Vietvana is they offer a lot of options when it comes to pho. For example, we could choose from five different types of broth, 11 proteins, and mixed veggies. For the most part, this isn't "Americanized" pho. It's more legit with meat options like tendon and tripe. I'd say the only thing missing is an herb: culantro. Otherwise, the pho here pretty much had everything I like.
Vietvana makes their own pho rice noodles daily. I met Vietvana's owners, Khanh Dang and Dinh Tran, at the Midtown location. At the time, they told me that the noodles were made at a single off-site kitchen, which supplied the restaurants.
Here's what the two of us got, which should give you a sense for pricing as well (descriptions below largely taken from menu):
Apps:
* Crispy Egg Rolls ($4.95) - egg rolls with ground pork, carrots, glass noodles, and garlic delicately fried to crispy golden brown; served with housemade fish sauce, lettuce, and pickled carrots and daikon
* Vietnamese Wings ($7.95) - crispy chicken wings fried with housemade sweet garlic fish sauce
Pho:
* Special Combination Beef - Pho Dac Biet x2 ($14.95 each) - made with Vietvana's housemade fresh rice noodles and signature beef broth, topped with white onions, green onions, cilantro, and served with a side of fresh herbs; rare steak, flank, brisket, tendon, tripe, and meatballs
Smoothie:
* Pineapple Coconut Smoothie ($6.95)
We thought everything was delicious, though not served exactly as described on the menu. The Crispy Egg Rolls didn't come with lettuce and pickled carrots and daikon. The Pho Dac Biet didn't come with a side of fresh herbs. Instead, a preset amount of herbs was placed into our bowls.
Practically speaking, I understand why we were served bowls of pho that came with herbs that were already placed into the soup. This isn't a sit-down restaurant, it's a food hall counter. Unlike some restaurants at PCM, Vietvana doesn't have its own dedicated dining room. There are counters you can sit at, but the surface space is limited. You can also take your food to one of a limited number of tables nearby. So yeah, it's just more of a hassle to serve pho the traditional way in this busy, dense environment.
Another difference in the way Vietvana serves their food here compared to their other locations is everything is disposable: plates, bowls, chopsticks, soup spoons, cups, and straws. Some items are more environmentally friendly (plates) than others (straws).
Back to the food and drink - everything was cooked and/or made fresh. Quality preparation, quality ingredients. I liked and recommend everything we had above. Despite the absence of the pickled carrots and daikon, the Crispy Egg Rolls were still savory and satisfying. The Vietnamese Wings were delectably sticky, sweet, and salty. While I like to have control over the herbs I put into my pho, I still thought the Pho Dac Biet was tasty and gratifying. The noodle texture was fresh and the meat quality was good. I really liked the tripe and tendon. The Pineapple Coconut Smoothie was like having a virgin pina colada. Yum.
Service was good. Our cashier/server was polite and our entire order came out quick. My wife tried to grab our food from the counter as it was ready, but our cashier/server told us that she would bring our order out to us. That was nice.
Use the ParkMobile app to pay for parking at PCM. It just makes things easier. The zone number is 222. This last visit, I paid $4.60 total for two hours.