Thanh Tam Vietnamese Noodle House

The food here is very good. We entered to find the restaurant about half full and were seated promptly under a tv and close to the door. It wasn’t bothersome though as the volume wasn’t cranked up. The tables by the window were a popular choice as they were all filled up. The restaurant is clean and I like that the tables aren’t so close together like at some other places.
I had my usually vermicelli bowl and ordered the beef and spring rolls. The carrots and cucumbers were sliced perfectly as not too thin or thick. They also tasted and looked fresh. The beef came with peanuts on top and it was tender and not chewy. Spring rolls very tasty and they give you enough fish sauce for the big bowl of food.
You pay at the counter and the service is very prompt. We had our drinks refilled throughout the meal too. The washroom was clean and there’s soap so that is a good sign.
Definitely a place I would come back to. Great food, service, and atmosphere.

So last week Violet P and I are driving towards the Thanh Tam Noodle House for lunch. I see a sign in front of the restaurant that reads «Beautiful Asian Ladies! 100% Satisfaction! Always New Ladies!»
I’m thinking, «Yes, THAT’S the way to get people into a restaurant. (At least guys.) It turns out that the sign was actually for a massage parlour a couple of doors down from Thanm Tam. Next to the strip club.
The Thanm Tam has a cozy, friendly, and inviting atmosphere (probably not as friendly as next door). We were greeted immediately upon walking in the door and the server asked how many in our party. From the time that we parked the car until we were seated with our drinks it was probably only two or three minutes.
I ordered the Grill Chicken Rice combo (#45). The rice was nice and sticky but not too dry, just the way I like it. The service was prompt and very polite. The servers are back to your table often to see if you need anything else but not so often that it becomes annoying. There’s a ton of combos to choose from. I counted over a hundred.
When you’re done your meal you have to approach the counter at the back of the restaurant to pay. Just so you know – so you’re not sitting there for an hour wondering why no one has come to give you your bill.
Just remember: It’s the door furthest to the left – not the one on the right.

There are not a lot of good vietnamese restaurants in the westend but this one is one of the better ones. You can get fast service, good food at good prices. I’ve been here a few times for lunch and you can easily get in and out in less than 45 minutes.
This restaurant is bigger than the usual vietnamese places and can accommodate larger groups. The tables are not crammed close together so you can have a conversation without other people hearing. It is clean, quiet and you can actually relax and enjoy your food.
The waitresses are very quick to bring you the menu and some tea. My friend and I usually order the same dishes. She likes the vermicelli noodle bowl with pork and spring rolls, it is loaded with lots of lettuce, bean sprouts, cucumbers and pickled carrots. I like the beef noodle soups and pick from different types of meat depending on what I feel like that day. You can get the small or large size, which is just more noodles if you want large. The soup is not oily and comes with bean sprouts, basil leaves, a hot red pepper and lemon that you can add in once it arrives at the table.
The menu offers quite a variety of dishes and everything looks fresh and delicious. I’ve seen stir-​fry and rice go by the table and it smelled fabulous and was loaded with colorful veggies and meat. I have never been disappointed at this restaurant. Your bill is paid at the counter and the staff always ask if you want to pay separately without raising a fuss!

Fantastic beef satay soup !
Consistenty good food. Great service at reasonable prices. Great lunch spot but can get busy from noon till one. Better to go after 1

Thanh Tam serves a decent bowl of phở — nothing to go out of your way to seek, but good enough to satisfy on a chilly day. The menu is fairly typical of a vietnamese restaurant, but i was very pleased with the scale of the vegetarian selection on the menu — it’s not quite Veggie Garden, but one of the best vegetarian options for the area.

This was my first time trying this place out and my experience was great. The service was fast and we got our food pretty quickly and efficiently. We ordered the salad rolls and green onion cakes for appetizer and they were pretty decent. For main course we ordered the grilled meat with vermicelli and that was very good and delicious. The meat was moist and shrimp was cooked to perfection. This place is recommended if you are a vietnamese food lover.

Came here for lunch the other day as I was craving Phở and this restaurant was close enough to work.
Lunch came quickly and was tasty enough. Price was certainly reasonable. Will return.

As a group of early retire international young ladies, we meet each other out for lunch one a week, this week we choose Light menu and went to Thanh Tam.
I love authentic food and I love the taste at Thanh Tam.
Phở, is noodle soup with slide of beef, beef tendon, meat ball (you can chose different meat) serve with sprout, fresh lemon, mint and very hot red pepper! On the cool winter day this is the best way to warm your body temperate and you tummy in the same time.
Bun is the dry noodle, again they have different topping, and we pick: spring rolls, bbq chicken, shrimps, it came with shed cucumber, mints, sprout top with peanuts and serve with fish sauce, Yum!
Broken rice plate, came with shed pork, meat load and pork chop … come with slide cucumber, tomato, serve with fish sauce.
At Thanh Tam we find the price were very seasonable, food quality were very good and fast, severe were very good (they always came back to top up our tea).
I only write up 3 out of 6 dishes for 6 of us and these were only a few of their menu… there are more selection to come when we visit next time and for sure we will.

Been coming here for years and have never once been disappointed. Awesome Phở soups, Rice bowls, mixed plates, and tons of appy’s. Try the 32 Beef (Saté soup), it’s the best around.

I’ve not yet found a Vietnamese restaurant in Edmonton that I really like, so I’m always looking out for new ones to try. I’m sad to say that Thanh Tam was quite disappointing. I’ll certainly be in no rush to go back.
The exterior of the building is pretty bland and unassuming, and on the inside, the décor is the usual decorative mixed bag that you tend get at Vietnamese restaurants. An interior designer might have a few things to complain about, but I found it relaxed and welcoming, so that’s a plus. The restaurant has a few TVs on the walls, and unfortunately when my wife and I came in they were playing Treehouse TV – I guess the owners’ kids were playing around in the back and watching TV. At first there was a relatively inoffensive kid’s show on, but then that ended and Caillou came on. Caillou is possibly the most annoying television program ever conceived. I’m not a parent myself, but I’m pretty sure that show is designed to make parents regret their decision to have kids.
In fairness, the place was pretty empty when we arrived, and Caillou was only on for a few minutes – once more customers arrived they were pretty quick to switch it to a sports channel. I’m a big supporter for family-​owned and small businesses, so I have mixed feelings about making an issue out of this, but Caillou is REALLY annoying. Children’s television in general is the last thing I want to hear when I’m out for dinner.
At any rate, a few minutes of irritating TV is pretty minor in the scheme of things. Unfortunately I was also quite disappointed by the food. I had the 54B, which is stir fried beef in curry sauce served with rice. I normally go for phở when I go to Vietnamese restaurants, but I love the curry beef at the Golden Bell in Calgary, so I figured I’d take a chance and try Thanh Tam’s curry beef dish. I probably should have stuck with phở: the beef had a rubbery/​gummy texture, and the rice was just ever so slightly hard, as if it wasn’t entirely fresh. The sauce was good, and overall the dish was okay… it certainly wasn’t inedible or anything. It’s not something I’d have again, though.
As I mentioned, I want to support family-​owned businesses, so I feel a little bad about potentially turning people off of this place even though my experience was not great. That being the case, I do want to say a couple things in the restaurant’s defence: my wife said her phở was pretty good, although not the best she’d ever had. She also said that she really enjoyed the spring rolls. Finally, I’m sure it’s a faux paus to mention this here, but the restaurant is pretty well rated on Urban Spoon, so you might want to read some of the reviews there before you decide to skip this place. On the whole, though, my personal opinion is that this restaurant is considerably less than stellar.