Thanh Xuan Café

Great place for banh cuon and bun rieu cua (crab noodle soup). The portion for banh cuon depends on who is serving it. The last few times we didn’t get the «good» lady. Food is good and service can be a little slow. Don’t come during peak times. There’s limited seating and you may have to wait.

This small place feels authentic.
The #2 rice rolls is great!

There are so many Vietnamese places in this tiny stretch of Kingsway, I have no idea how places like these survive.
Parking is available in the strip mall parking lot out front.
The inside is quite beaten up and plain.
The place is run by a couple of older Vietnamese ladies, and this is about as homemade as it gets. There are only about 9 food dishes available. Pricing is a bit higher at $ 8 – 9, but hey, they’ve got bills to pay.
One of the more unusual dishes (I haven’t seen this anywhere else in Vancouver) is snail bun. This dish was nice and stinky, with generous pieces of bamboo, and bits of tomato on top. The soup was nice and clear. This is not your typical dish. If you like snail, this dish is for you. Very well done. Special mention.
The restaurant also sells freshly made buns and glutinous rice balls for takeout, but I didn’t get a chance to try.
One last thing — if you’re looking for hot sauce, their stash (several bottles) is on this one table in the back. Not sure why they didn’t put them on the other tables while we were there.
This is a great alternative to Phở Hoa (which is in the same mall), but they close early.

this is the place to go to for banh cuon. the chay (vegetarian) variety with the ham on the side and lots of fried scallions is my favourite. Make sure you ask for some for chilies to add to your fish sauce for a true banh cuon experience.

If you are sick of phở and want to try something different, why not come to Thanh Xuan Café and order one of my all time favourite Vietnamese dish: banh cuon? Banh cuon is a paper thin rice crêpe roll similar to Cantonese cheong fun at dim sum restaurants. However, the former is much delicate and is served with fried onions, cha lua or cha chien (Vietnamese ham) and some herbs and greens. The filling is usually minced pork with wood ear mushrooms but it can be vegetarian as well.
This hole in the wall only specializes in banh cuon primarily but they also serve bun oc (snail noodle soup) and some other noodles that I’ve never had before. Don’t even think of ordering phở because they don’t make them. The elderly lady who runs the place do not speak much English but don’t be intimidated. After all, you need to just order their specialty, pronounced «bun-​goon».