Kin Resto Bar

Sorry, Kin. Overpriced, slow service, and not very tasty.
Had the phở bo here at lunch. The beef balls were cold inside, the other beef was overcooked, and the noodles were underdone and hard.
It’s tough to get a good bowl of phở in this neighborhood. My suggestion is that you keep your craving for another day and go without from this joint.

I’ve walked past this place starving a million times not knowing it was Vietnamese and ignored it.
The other day we were waiting in line at Phở Goodness, and decided it wasn’t worth waiting and Unilocaled and found this place. Totally worth it.
My phở was a little cold, and we had to wait a long while, but it was good. Better than the 4 phở places I can think of off the top of my head in the area.
My husband got the Lemongrass chicken/​spring roll thing, and I got their version of phở bo. It would have been awesome if it was hot enough, my rare beef wasn’t even cooking in the broth.
It’s a little more expensive than most vietnamese places, but it is roomy and nice and quiet if you want a nice place to enjoy a meal with someone.
i’ll probably be back.

I really like to come here for lunch. Good cuisine, friendly and attentive service; the place itself is nice and comfortable.
The Rice Paper Rolls are excellent, especially Nem Pork & Mint and Black Cod & Mango. The Buddha Bowl is highly recommendable, as well as Co Anh’s Prawn Special and the Basa, coming with a tasty savory-​caramel sauce. I also like the Lemongrass Chicken Lunch Plate, and the Phở Ga. Beef Carpaccio and the Lotus Root Lunch Bowl are quite interesting.
Well prepared, fresh, good quality food for a reasonable price.
There is just one thing: As somebody already mentioned, sometimes the music tends to be annoying — a more relaxed style, and less loud would fit the place much better.

We tried this place our last night in Vancouver and found the food to be delicious. I personally have not had much Vietnamese food in the past, but the taste of the food in general was very, very good and flavorful. The beef phở soup was amazing and we had two other types of curry phở soups as well and they too were delicious. Our waitress was very friendly and checked on us rather frequently. When/​if I visit Vancouver again, I will definitely be stopping by again!

Always wanted to try this before when it was Chau, seeing that the window seats could be lots of people watching while eating ;)
Took advantage of another Groupon, though not a typical fire-​sale; just $ 15 for $ 20 but still ended up ordering double that. Here’s what i liked in order:
1. Viet Fried Rice: what a nice touch! diced pork, prawn, & bit of garlic too… got to try this!
2. Beef La Lot: nicely marinated pork, w/​radish in middle for great texture in every bite
3. prawn salad; very fresh, cilantro/​parsley
4. chay curry… plenty of veggies
5. rice paper, basically salad rolls, w/​black cod/mango…a bit on the light side for fish, and thought the mango was a bit overppowering, but nice n crunchy…
Iced coffee — why try it since Thuan An has the best – but needed to satisfy my curiosity… verdict, not strong enough, still good coffee flavour.
will have to return to try the beef short ribs… and that rice for sure!

I’m vegetarian, and it’s hard to find restaurants that offer both vegetarian and non-​vegetarian food so that I don’t have to drag my carnivorous family to a vegetarian restaurant, or starve at a steak place while they stuff themselves :)
This place was perfect. Food was AWESOME! I had the curry phở, sans the beef of course, and it was almost like a laksa (like at Banana Leaf). So delicious!
Be prepared to wait a little longer for your food… don’t go there when you’re already super hungry or you’ll be *hangry* by the time it gets to you. But know that they’re taking the time to make it extra-​tasty in that kitchen, and when it does come out, it’s worth the wait.
My uncle and aunt had two other dishes, both noodle based and both with meat, and they were very happy with their meals as well (and they’re from that part of the world, so they can be a little demanding about that kind of food!)
Servers were very friendly, very attentive.
Tables were a little wobbly, but seriously, that’s no big deal. Jam some napkins under there or something, and focus on the food and service!
Can’t wait to go back.

Tried Kin on Friday evening, very impressed — excellent flavour and reasonable prices. Shared 4 plates — The short ribs were amazing, lots of differnet spices and huge portion. The carpaccio was very good with nice flavour and the peanut sauce for the prawn and basil roll was good. The only let down was the vegetable spring rolls– they came out as tiny individual rolls — didn’t have a lot of filling and lacked flavour.
Overall a really good experience and atmosphere, will definitely be going back.

Restaraunts have come and gone, Saigon is one of them, shortly after I reviewed them, it closed up and became Chau. Then that just recently closed up, and it’s been renamed Kin, though I’m pretty sure they’ve kept the menu from Chau.
Outside approach: Nice clean entrance. Big windows, you can see through people eating. Sort of inviting. There’s a patio with some people.
Intro: I enter in, and the restaraunt design hasnt changed much, the bar is still smack in the center, with surrounding tables all around. I come in, and the bartender is chatting away at whomever is at the bar to bother notice me there. A half minute later, a waitress comes by and seats me, almost exactly where I was last time! I get a menu, laminated, and… a wine list on a crumpled up piece of paper. What was THAT about? Were they trying to be decorative? Can you AFFORD to make more photocopies? They’re still selling Vietnamese food here, although a bit more upscale then when I was here when it was Saigon.
Décor: It’s actually pretty bland. The walls are boringly painted I find. The table Im at is uneven. I put my foot down on the base on the floor to stop it from wobbling, the waitress comes by and fixes it. Steel chairs, not bad.
Clientele: A mix of all types. Mostly upscale though.
Service: 2 waitresses seem to serve me, alternating. They’re quite attentive actually.
THE MEAL:
I order, And the waitress brings me a hot bowl of water (to dunk my hands in!) and an empty bowl for my appetizer.
Free Stuff:
Again, a hot bowl of water. Not for drinking!
APPETIZER! Shortribs!
What I got. I thought it was slightly strange that a Vietnamese restaraunt such as this would have shortribs. But they do! I got a number of them… 8 I believe, And they’re all VERY tasty. Nom nom, spicy, chewy, and very interesting on the palate. I liked these a lot! Oh, and I DIDNT use the water bowl. haha.
Main Course!
For the main course, I get the Phở Bo, which is a rice noodle soup with beef slices, brisket, meat balls, assorted herbs and bean sprouts. In an interesting «Thanks for thinking of that» moment, they put the bean sprouts on a seperate plate beside the soup. I didn’t wind up putting any of them in. The soup, when I get it, smells very lemongrassy, sort of weak noodle smelly, and didn’t really smell all that great. When I tried the noodles though, they actually tasted not all that bad. the meat in it was, as predictably, boiled tasting and not great, but the broth was sure spicy. It actually was a nice combo of 3 different things into one. I don’t finish it, the broth is a bit much after awhile.
I
After:Waitress brings the bill on a nice plate. And curiously, a business card. They might have suspected something when I took a pic of the shortribs haha.
TOTAL OF BILL: $ 20.87
Was it worth it? Not really actually. The more I thought about it, the more I thought the soup wasnt really my thing. Noit much of a soup guy anyways. I could have ordered another appetizer. Like Saigon, they also had chicken wings. Dammit, why didn’t I get them???
Rating: ⁶⁄₁₀
Would I go here again? Nah. Soup was just ok. The shortribs were great, but nothing to you know, go «MAN I COULD SURE GO FOR SOME SHORTRIBS RIGHT NOW!», So no.

All we’ve ever had is Phở Bo, but it’s outstanding. And they’ll give you a doggie bag for lefties…
One complaint is the atrocious music they play. We had to move away from a speaker in the right hand side of the restaurant to the table by the door across from the bar. Like bad Asian ABC (think «The Look of Love»)/New Wave from the 80s…

I had the «sampler platter» which had the ribs, lemon chicken, and something else I can’t recall. was very tasty. I was so inspired, I ordered the spring rolls — which were quite tasty.
I’m glad I ventured into new territory, and didn’t just go with the familiar Phở soup. Though I agree with some others here — I would have loved to have had just a small cup or something to wet my appetite for it :)

I dropped in for a quick lunch and ordered the most un-​Viet thing on the menu I think which was a grilled Steelhead.
It was terrific. Great crispy skin, cooked perfectly, and a decent sized portion for the price.
The downside was that because I wanted so bad to try some noodle in soup I asked if I could get little side of that. What I got was just a little bowl of noodles. No soup. Just noodles. I was in a rush so I wasn’t in the mood to make any deal out of it.
It’s a great, clean atmosphere inside, and I might return to have a gander at the Viet side of the menu.

YUM! I can’t believe I’ve never eaten at a Vietnamese restaurant in Vancouver. Apparently I live a sheltered life.
My friend highly recommended that we stop here for dinner and I was pleasantly surprised. It was really yummy!
The menu was reasonably priced and I enjoyed the ambiance. I ordered Co Anh’s Prawn Special which was a stir-​fry with rice noodles, tiger prawns and mixed vegetables. The sauce was light and sweet which was a nice change from the salty soy sauce I’m used to in other Asian cuisines. My friend ordered the seafood crêpe made with rice flour (for the second time because she loved it so much the first time). I didn’t try it but it looked interesting and delicious. Service was good too!
They lost one star because my food was served a good 10 minutes earlier than my dinner partners which was slightly annoying. I either had to be rude and start eating or let my food get cold while we waited for my friends food to arrive. I would have liked to see both meals arrive at the same time. Other then that, no complaints!

Head on down Robson and right at the point where the street goes down hill you will find this fabulous Vietnamese restaurant. Go for the food or just go to enjoy a drink.
Mojito Monday’s at Chau are the best! You can get a pitcher of Mojitos for $ 20. This day they had blueberry Mojitos and boy were they amazing!
Drink aside the menu is great. The prices are so reasonable and everything has a bit of a twist on the traditional Vietnamese food. The atmosphere is clean, modern and pleasant. All of the staff made me feel as if I were their only customer and I wasn’t.
Chau has the right formula and if they keep it up we will see them around for a very long time!

Wow, I was very impressed with this restaurant.
We sat on the patio for dinner, the waitress was excellent, very helpful, friendly and the other staff was great as well.
We decided to have the $ 25 pitcher of Lychee Mojito and damn was it good. As for food, the shredded pork was excellent, the rice paper wraps (a pork one and a prawn one) were delicious and nicely priced, and the Chicken Phở was awesome and came in a huge bowl.
The only item I wasn’t impressed with was the Mushroom and Tofu dish, but it was still good, just not my favourite.
Highly recommend this excellent place, will be going back soon.

Friends of ours had booked this restaurant for our weekend get together. Prior to this, I had not heard anything about this restaurant. The day of our reservations… I went online to see if the restaurant website had a menu. Don’t you just love online menus?
To my demise, nothing really jumped out at me. There were less than 25 items and all of the items seemed like regular Vietnamese fare. I’m not sure how I feel about paying $ 11 for a large beef «phở».
When we arrived for our 7pm reservation at the corner locale on Robson, the restaurant was fairly empty. Although ½ hour later, it started to fill up. We received attentive service the first half of our dinner but as the restaurant got busier, the servers seemed to be struggling. I noticed that there were only 3 servers on the floor for the whole entire restaurant. Perhaps they still need to work out a few logistical kinks. Nevertheless, I do believe that they made a tremendous effort in trying to please all of their patrons. «A» for effort!
The server was very knowledgeable about all the menu items and made excellent suggestions. I really appreciated her enthusiasm in describing the food and drink offerings.
For a party of 4 we ended up ordering 6 dishes (to share, of course).
Honorable mentions:
The «rau ram» ($ 7.00) — green papaya salad with orange zest, shredded green apple, peanuts, and crispy shallots was excellent… refreshing and just the right ingredient proportions.
The «chay curry with prawns» ($ 14.00) — was over flowing with a variety of veggies, taro and tofu.
Dessert — deep-​fried bananas drizzled with condensed milk and served with lychee ice cream … to die for! … a must try!
CHAU markets itself as a modern Vietnamese restaurant and that is exactly what it is. Regular Vietnamese fare in a modern setting; beautifully plated meals; fancy cocktails; full service.
That being said, the pricing is a bit steep for what you get. Clearly you are paying for the atmosphere and all the modern amenities. The quality of food is good but I don’t think it would become one of my regular dining venues.
My one gripe from this visit was that a few of the plates and utensils were were not squeaky clean.

Quaint little classy Vietnamese joint. Friendly service. Nice music. Great food — fresh, not-​over-​portioned, tasty, etc.
But your enjoyment might depend on what you order. Some dishes are tasty and some are mediocre.

Inside, it’s dark and modern. Coupled with photographs of family and Vietnam, the environment gave you a real good idea of exactly the kind of food you would be treated to.
The menu is small, and it’s very tapas-​oriented. We chose 4 dishes to share, which all promptly showed up at the same time, maximizing the sharing potential.
The rau ram salad was deliciously fresh. Shredded and lightly dressed with a sweet peanut dressing, it went perfectly with the rare lemon beef dish we ordered. Pretty much a vietnamese carpaccio, the cold, thin beef, swimming in a slightly sweet, but overall tart dressing really complimented the sweet crunchiness of the salad. I loved the giant, seemingly home made prawn cracker that came on top of the salad.
The beef short ribs were also excellent. Buttery fat glazed each piece of perfectly charred meat. When I think of beef short ribs, I immediately think of galbi, but this was a bit different. I’m so used to the sweet soy sauce marinade, that I’ve come to expect that sort of flavour on grilled beef ribs. But these ribs were slightly spicy, only a bit sweet, and so wonderfully BBQ’d.
Finally, there were the «rice paper summer rolls». I pretty much just expected your regular salad rolls, overstuffed with rice vermicelli and lettuce, but these were nothing like that. Sure, they had the same ingredients, but in such a perfect proportion to each other. Delicately wrapped in soft, translucent blankets of rice paper, I absolutely adored the basil leaves and deep fried crunchy garlic. These rolls were taste and texture heaven. Chewy, crunchy, and soft. Aromatic, savory and sweet.
Overall, Devon and I ate until we were comfortably full, for just under $ 40. The prices were comparable to any other tapas restaurant, but unlike some tapas restaurant, you’re not left wondering why you’re paying $ 9 for a tiny plate of food.
I obviously can’t comment on the drink menu or the dessert menu, as I don’t drink alcohol, and we had bought Beard Papas for dessert. Next time, though, definitely. I never feel complete at a restaurant, until I’ve had some of their dessert. I believe she said something about a pandan pancake…

Been dying to try this place that’s just around the corner from my home.
This place has a wonderful patio to lounge in and enjoy the summer. They have quite an interesting martini and cocktail list.
My experience with vietnamese décor is sparse and utilitarian. Chau definitely has redefined the space of your typical vietnamese restaurant. It’s modern, clean and comfortable.
We ordered quite a few dishes. Out of everything we tried, hands down the favourite was the chicken and taro spring roll. The other dishes: pork sausage, prawns, noodle soup and short ribs were ok but didn’t blow me away. I found they fell short of being as flavourful as they could be. Do you know what I mean? Hmmmm… not as zesty as I have had in those hole in a walls. A little on the bland side.
The food was good. The plating was clean. The servers were prompt and friendly. The amount of time it took for food to it our table was swift. All in all this place has the potential. I would like to give it another try in a few months to see how their menu and flavours has developed.
All in all not a bad place at all!!!

Pretty underwhelming Vietnamese:
The hilarious part: our Alberta-​native waitress had this weird boyish haircut and odd tights that made her look like Peter Pan!
The food was generally pretty lackluster. Appetizers of lemongrass chicken spring rolls were passable, but didn’t taste much like lemongrass. Entrees were pretty forgettable. Fish was bland, spice was absent, prices were high. They also were very excited to tell about their last remaining large bottle of Heineken beer (a total of over 700 ml) as is it were some rare Vietnamese treat. How strange!
The highlight is that the cocktails were generally good, although not great and low in alcohol.
Expensive and not too tasty is the conclusion.

I really really wanted to love this place. Higher end Vietnamese cuisine? Non-​open 24 hours neon lighting? Non-​shady Kingsway location? Sign me up! I wanted to try this place when it first opened up but I showed considerable restraint waiting at least a month after opening so that it would have a fair chance getting its act together.
The décor is great — a huge improvement over the previous nondescript phở joint. Modern touches with traditional Vietnamese décor. Our server was lovely too, pleasant and knowledgeable about the menu.
But, I’m only here for the food — which although wasn’t BAD, definitely didn’t blow my socks off either. A chicken and taro spring roll was probably the best dish of the evening, it was amazingly non-​greasy for a deep fried spring roll. The green papaya salad felt like an overpriced and slightly oversized garnish. The caramel pork was crispy, tasty but incredibly salty — score one for the waitress suggesting a bowl of rice to accompany it. I would not have been able to eat more than one piece without the rice. The short ribs were average — not bad, but nothing I couldn’t have done at home either with a good terriyaki sauce.
They also charged me 50 cents for extra fish sauce. FISH SAUCE. That’s like charging extra for ketchup. Sigh. Boo. Urns.
Good ambiance, nice loungey music in the background, but can’t say I’ll be coming back unless one of my trendier friends decides to have a birthday dinner here.