Thuyen Vien

This restaurant moved to this location (re-​open):
1740 S Euclid St.
Anaheim, CA 92 802
Grand opening is September 5^th, this Sunday! Yahoooo!
Please visit the new restaurant location at Unilocal

Closed up shop. They has really great food. Sad to see them go. Wish I was in the area more often to grab it.

Today was Thuyen’s Vien last day at their current location. My family and I went in for one final dinner here and food was wonderful, as always. Every table was full and the owner’s family came in to help on their last night here. They are wonderful people who really seem to enjoy running this restaurant — we’ve been a few times so he recognizes us. As I went to pay, he took off the price of one entrée which was so nice of them!
I wrote my email down so they can (hopefully) contact their customers about where they decide to open again. He said it would be in Orange County — like Cypress, Westminster, Garden Grove, etc. but they are going to take a month off first & then reopen. I really hope that does happen — it is great food & I eagerly await news of their restaurant.

Both my boyfriend and a friend of mine have been telling me about how great this place is for over a year now. Recently, after I heard that this restaurant was closing its doors, I decided it was time to belly up to Stanton and check it out for myself.
The owner is probably one of the nicest, happiest people I have ever met. He was excited to tell us about the specials, one of which was a spicy appetizer that is hard to explain, but included a delicious yellow curry sauce, jalapenos and bamboo served alongside a black sesame seed seaweed cracker. He sold it much better than I do here, but I can tell you that it was delicious and struck the perfect balance between savory and spicy.
We also ordered the pumpkin curry. This to my surprise did not include the traditional pumpkin flavor that I associate with pies, but was rather made from Bi Bau, or Vietnamese pumpkin, which has a green rind. My initial sip from the broth made me smile, as I was immediately reminded of a yellow Fruit Loop, but the second and third tastes became more nuanced and intricate.
I was told that I absolutely had to try the Phở, which was very good, but very different from the kind that I am used to. For me, I think that Phở gets a lot of its distinct flavor from the animal fats that are rendered in the broth, so the vegetarian broth felt a little thin, but when paired with a small dollop of red chili paste, it was not lacking in comparison at all.
We also tried the Vietnamese crêpe, which was very hearty and delicious, and I enjoyed the crunchy and soft texture together. When wrapped in the lettuce leaf with mint, each bite became a little adventure for my taste buds.
Last, but not least, we had the cheesecake, which was topped with a small red kumquat. You could have told me it was cheese, and I would have believed you with every ounce of my being. This slice was so good!
The owner told us that the last day for this restaurant will be the 17^th, but that they plan on reopening in another (as of now unknown) location about a month or so later. There is a notebook up by the registers for patrons to include their name and email address so that he and his wife can contact everyone to perform a survey, in which they will ask where their new location should be, and what new items people would like added to the menu. I can’t wait to come back and try out the new items in their new location.

I’ve been a vegetarian for over 17 years and I do love mock meats. Call me an expert in it. My mom has some of the best vietnamese vegetarian cooking and so I can be pretty picky when it comes to reviewing Vietnamese vegetarian food.
This restaurant was pretty good, but I wouldn’t say 5 stars good. Not too busy on a Saturday afternoon. Things I ordered (as suggested by other Unilocalers):
— Banana flower taco: it was good and very flavorful. I can’t help but just complain about the price on this one. It was like a sweet/​sourish lime-​y salad, piece of avocado, deep fried flower thing, all on top of a mock shrimp chip. $ 6.95 and you only get 3 of these chips.
— Clay pot of fish: you usually can’t go wrong with a clay pot of fish at any vegetarian restaurant. However, this one was a bit disappointing to me. Mock fish has never tasted rubbery to me, but this was the first time I felt like it did. It’s usually the mock beef/​turkey/​chicken that has a tendency to be rubbery, but never the fish! Sauce and taste was good, but I was just a bit turned off by the texture.
— Chicken with garlic and special sauce: this entrée was very good, no complaints here. Just the right amount of crispy/​crunchiness, garlic wasn’t overpowering (although I actually didn’t even really taste any of the garlic).
— White rice: I like my white rice really sticky. Their rice was a bit loose and not as fluffy as I would like it. But rice is rice, I won’t dwell on it.
Oh and I also really wanted to try their tamales as suggested by other reviewers, but I didn’t see it on their menu! I didn’t bother asking the owner though… I felt like I already ordered enough food!
In any case, I’m willing to try other dishes at this place at another visit. I saw a sign on the wall claiming they had the best phở by OCWeekly.
Oh and by the way, the owner told me they’re going to be closed for about a month sometime in 2010. In the meanwhile, they’re going to try to find a new location closer to the freeways, whether it’s the 405, 22, or 5 and re-​open again.

Awesome food. great respect for health of patrons.
Closed end of jan 2010. that is so sad

Not Vegan!!!
I went here yesterday for lunch. When I asked the owner if all the food was vegan he said that it was 95% vegan and 5% not vegan. When I went to use the bathroom which was located in the back of the kitchen, I quickly glanced around and saw that there were containers with mono-​diglicerides, milk (casein) as well as honey powder. I didn’t know what to make of all this because he had said that 5% of their food items were not vegan.
I came here because II wanted to try out there food and possibly see if I wanted to use the restaurant to cater a party. I sat down and ordered some dishes. The «shrimp and and pork» dish was absolutely disgusting, the fake shrimp and pork tasted like rubber. I had never tasted fake meat like this and just by the looks and feel of it, me and my fiancé began to become VERY SUSPICIOUS. It tasted like there might have been eggs or dairy in all of the fake meat. It was absolutely the worst fake meat I ever had, and did not taste vegan at all. The «lemongrass chicken» dish was rubbery and absolutely gross.
For all the vegans out there, I’m warning you to not go to this place. After I left, me, my fiancé and my friend had horrible stomach pain and felt sick the rest of the night. This was the worst veggie Vietnamese place I have ever been to and I don’t understand why there are so many good reviews about this place. None of the ingredients are fresh, everything is frozen, and I don’t trust their fake meats at all, I’m certain that they had dairy in them because we all got sick from the food.
Don’t fooled by the pictures that you see, because this is NOT the way the food looks like when you go to the restaurant. The food is NOT fresh. These photos fooled me and that’s why I went to this place in the first place.

What a great restaurant to dine at. It lies in a quiet deserted plaza where the pavement desperately requires some attention. I bet the rent is cheap and it helps costs down because Thuyen Vien isn’t the cheapest place to eat but the prices are very reasonable.
It’s a true mom and pop’s place where they treat you like family. The service is excellent and the menu has many great vegetarian dishes that will fool your taste buds. The owners seem to take pride and care very much about the the ingredients they put in.
I would recommend the fish clay pot. It’s nicely presented and tastes very similar to real oyster sauce marinated fish. The Vietnamese Sour soup is good too if you are in the mood hot/​warm liquids to combat the cold weather.

Great Vegetarian Vietnamese food. I highly recommend the Pumpkin Curry, Vegan Sushi or the Garlic Chicken.
During the winter, their Phở is outstanding. The Pumpkin Curry is to DIE FOR.
Si, the owner, will make great recommendations if it’s first time there!

I’m a meat guy, and I liked this place a lot.
Came with three others, and when we walked in, the owner/​chef was super nice to us (granted, there was only one other table of customers). He eagerly had a few suggestions on what to try after I asked, and we were not disappointed.
Soy chicken — seriously, this looked and tasted like real chicken, and was battered and fried very nicely with a nice sauce
Eggplant Claypot sensation — always a hit or miss with me, and definitely a hit here. Eggplant wasn’t overcooked and mushy like it often is other places
Pumpkin curry wasn’t anything special, although I did like the fried potato pieces in it.
Green mango salad was also tasty, and it better have been since the chef recommended it!
all in all, tasty food, decent price (all the above plus a few drinks totalled under 50 dollars)
If i ever find my way down in garden grove again, i’ll definitely ask the owner about all this golf trophies too… seems like a great place for locals to get a bite

We wanted to find a good vegetarian place a little closer than Au Lac (
) so we tried this place. This place is ghetto compared to Au Lac :)) but the food is still pretty good. This is a small mom-​and-​pop restaurant near a temple of some sort, so if you walk in and see a giant table full of very old Vietnamese people, you know where they came from. (Also, there was a sign that said they would be open on Tuesday due to the full moon. We assumed that was a religious thing. Although I prefer religions that insist you take a day off due to random celestial happenings.)
On to the food…
Thai-​style Fried Rice — Oh man was that good. The rice was amazing, and believe me, I would know. I love fried rice. This was broken rice stir fried into perfection. And topped with a large dose of pepper. Must have, especially if you love pepper.
Lamb with special sauce — The «lamb» was pretty good. I wouldn’t mistake it for the real thing, but I liked the texture and the look of it. However, I didn’t like the fruity sauce it came with. Something with cranberries in it I think. I don’t like it when dessert invades my entrees, sorry. But if you’re a fan of fruity sauces, go ahead and order it.
Cheesecake — Made from tofu, and surprisingly good. I make a mean cheesecake, so I won’t say this is the greatest thing in the world, BUT it’s very, very good if you’re looking for a more healthy (and guilt-​free) alternative. Topped with what seemed to be a maraschino loquat.

GREAT vegetarian Viet dishes and especially bun cha gio thit nuong (grilled «pork» and egg rolls over rice noodles with fresh veggies). Also great is the «fish», a gingery soy slab that really tastes like fresh fish… even the texture is right, and it has a skin! The owners are very friendly and always give us a little freebie treat to try out. I feel sorry for them because their location really sucks… end of a scuzzy strip mall row in a dead mini-​mall complex with a boarded-​up supermarket next door… sad.
Beware that they are closed on TUESDAY… WTF? Tuesday? Also bring your own beer as they have no liquor license (and their food is just dying to be washed down with a cold one).
Update: I was kinda disappointed when I found most of the «meat» dishes that Thuyen Vien sells can be found at the local Viet markets… I thought they made them from scratch. Oh well. The place is still cheap enough and the help is nice enough to warrant a visit.

Unilocal pointed me in this direction when some of my NY friends wanted to try Viet food. We arrived around 1:30 PM on Sunday, and there was only one other table of people.
The place looks little divey from the outside, but the food is amazing.
I love meat, but if I could eat here every day, I’d convert right now. We had the «fish» clay pot dish, «beef» phở, a «chicken» dish that was like fried chicken pieces with a sweet and sour sauce.
Overall, they had great flavors, and the mock meats really could pass any carnivore’s standards. It was that good. The pumpkin curry was a little too spicy for me. I think the pumpkin could have been a little more tender, but I’ll forgive that. Even the brown rice was especially tasty; it was flecked with wild/​red rice (?). I’ll have to go back and ask what it was. It was cooked perfectly, not hard, as it can be in some places.
The owner gave us perfect recommendations, and spoke lovingly about his food. You can tell that he hopes you enjoy the food as much as he enjoys making it. My friend kept trying to convince him to open a branch in NY, but he politely declined. Sometimes the best food comes from small, mom-​and-​pop places.
This was one of the best dining experiences I’ve ever had, across all price ranges. Even my bf, who is one helluva picky eater, said that he’d love to come back.

Wow, what flavor beams out of this little hole in the wall in a strip shopping center. The owner is friendly, helpful, and offers great service. We’ve eaten Asian vegetarian before but this place is SMOKING good.
Everything was great but the highlights were the soy lamb dish umm good. Then curry pumpkin with chicken, nice and spicy. I can’t wait to go back. We are adopting another greyhound, so will be in garden grove often, and my first stop will be Thuyen Vien.

I finally tried it! Could not be happier.
My favorite Viet food is Bun (vermicelli). So naturally I had to try the one of the menu and compare. It was better then most regular Viet places make it. For me it is hard to replace fish sauce with a substitute, but the one they provided totally did the trick, I was amazed.
I tried the spicy curry as well… I melted a little. Wow. All the food seemed to be done extremely well and tasted great from our table. You seriously can’t even tell most of the food is vegan, and I’m not even a vegetarian!
Super friendly family owned restaurant! So nice and warm feeling inside, especially coming in from the area around it, not so great. It is on the Garden Grove/​Stanton border and is slightly hard to see if you have never been there before. Its in a short little strip of shops within a large parking lot located on the south end of the parking lot. There is plenty of parking.
Don’t be afraid of vegan or vegetarian food! Try Thuyen Vien and be surprised! The prices will not discourage you, they are, for the most part, cheaper or about the same as traditional Vietnamese places.

WOW.
I’m definitely ok with not eating meat even though I’m an avid carnivore, but a part of me feels like maybe I would be ok with being a vegetarian if all food was like the food at Thuyen Vien.
The owner was incredibly friendly! He told us they were going to start selling a vegetarian burrito. I definitely have to go back to try that out.
We ordered banana flower tacos, pumpkin curry, and soy «lamb». The lamb was absolutely incredible. I’ve never tasted fake meat before so I’m going to go ahead and state what my vegetarian friend said, that she usually hates fake meat but she loved it. The soy lamb was so incredible but wasn’t that it just tasted like meat, it had the TEXTURE of meat. Seriously. It SHREDDED like meat. Seriously? How did they do that!!!
My vegetarian friend just found one of her new favorite places to eat.
TRY THE CHEESECAKE! Vegan cheesecake of amazing. *drooool*

I am not a vegetartian… but damn, this place is good! even for a meat eater like myself.
I thought the GARLIC CHICKEN was for real, but my vegetarian friend assured me its not. WOW! I couldnt tell. VERY FLAVORFUL.
The phở was equally enjoyable too.
Service is great. The owner kept coming to our table to make sure we liked his food.
oh, and there was one of those, «PEOPLE LIKE US ON Unilocal» stickers in the front window.

The noodles were great! Loved the firm noodles with nice substantial and hearty chewing texture.
The soup was tasty in a nice deep flavored vegetarian soup way. This one landed between light and rich style, it reminded me of Bo De’s vegetarian Phở soup, similar but lighter and more delicate, less punch but not bad still.
It was nice but I longed for something more, an extra punch of some sort that will make me remember this Phở by. But on the other side of the coin, it was smooth and delicious, soothing even. So a punch might kill this soup? I’m confused, focus…
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The imitation tofu beef was ok but it’s not what I’ll order again. To be fair I’ve not had good vegetarian beef to date, veggie chicken beats beef any day IMHO.
I’ve ordered the following and they were all Ok except the Brown Rice, the rice was fantastic. Moist and tasty fantastic (I’m so glad I didn’t opt for the white rice here).
Chicken and Basil was pretty good (Tasty!).
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The Clay Pot Fish was ok (Sophisticated taste, too soft for me, I want Red Snapper firm texture. How they make the tofu acquire slight fishy taste is a mystery to me.
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Nothing else comes to mind right now so I’m just going to say what appears to be at the tip of my tongue at the moment, ‘soul is missing’, yea that’s it.
Huh… (I check behind me quickly), just thought the folks form this place was right behind me saying ‘I’ll show you soul!’ Just my imagination looks like, ah my laundry’s done gotta go.

Goooooood.
(That should have been «God» not «Good»)
So good (now it’s not god).
Seriously, this place is solid. I haven’t disliked anything I got here. Be careful, because they’re not open on Tuesdays.
However, that’s a lame way to end a review, so I’ll say this: If you like garlic, then you need to order the hell out of the garlic chicken. You need to order it and then eat the hell out of it and then pay (for) the hell out of it. It is your garlic fantasy dish.
I love so much that I am (in fact) going to marry it. It will be an open marriage, though. I’m ok with sharing something this amazing.

I think this place might be my favorite restaurant.
My girl and I have been eating here pretty much since it opened.
I spent a lot of my youth in this neighborhood (it really feels more like Stanton/​West Anaheim area– it’s only technically Garden Grove) and I can tell you that it is characterized by two things: a surprisingly multicultural gang scene and failed businesses.
The center where this restaurant is located has had MULTIPLE supermarkets located in it go out of business. If Albertson’s is having a tough time staying in business, you know it’s rough.
Anyway, I pray for this place because they have unbelievably good food and great family restaurant service. I would really hate to see a great restaurant like fail… so go eat there and then tell all your firends about it.
The owner, his wife and kids are all the type of people who will keep the place open late for you to sneak in and grab a meal and they’re always adding new dishes to the menu. I’ve never had something I didn’t like here, and I have tried it all.
I like to buy stuff from here and feed it to people without telling them its vegetarian– they either don’t notice or realize it’s better than most meat they’ve had lately (pause).
I Recommend:
Buddha’s Feast
Claypot dishes (pick one)
The roasted «fish»
“Chicken” drumsticks
You can literally choose at random from this menu and walk away satisfied every time.