Van Loi Noodle Company

I am so glad there is a place that makes fresh Vietnamese style rice noodles. They have a wide range of different noodles, sandwiches, sweets and more. I mainly go their for the banh hi noodles. I get 5 pounds to go. I love having that stuff with crispy roast pork and fish sauce. The 5 pounds feeds a lot of people. I have yet to try the other stuff. The desserts look delicious.
I really wanted to give this place 5 stars because I truly value the availability of fresh noodles. This place fall short in cleanliness. It looks very dirty in there. I think they are due for a make over.

I’m kind of disappointed, because it’s not how it used to be anymore. I guess that would make sense since they have a change in ownership. Not many food are laid out in the front like the pictures anymore. Though, the service was alright. The good thing is that they now accept credit card.

On the weekends, you will see many Viet people walking out of this place with large platters, which will feed many happy people at a large family gathering. My mother in Everett makes me drive here to pick up trays of food for parties and I have driven here to pick up smaller trays for dinner or smaller parties.
I highly recommend the bánh bèo tôm, which is their specialty. These small rice cakes are topped individually with mung bean paste and powdered dry shrimp. You will get a container of sliced green onion in oil (m hành), julienned pickled carrots, and prepared fish sauce with sambal chili sauce. Also delicious are the rice rolls with mushroom and ground pork (bánh cuon thit).
In summary, come here for any rice product for yourself or for a party; they make it all in house. Lastly, don’t forget to bring CASH.

Best Vietnamese deli on Rainier Ave.
Food is always good and consistant. Cant never complaint about price. Friendly service. Strongly recommend.

Best Asian hole in the wall café/​deli.
Down home value, quality, and quantity.
No problem ordering with menu.
No hipsters.

4 stars for the food I did try.
We came in to pick up some food in the deli area for a party. Most everything sold in the deli are in bulk quantities.
The banh mi xiu mai (meatball sandwich) is the best I’ve tried around town. The gio with tom and thit (vietnamese shrimp and pork salad) was a little pricey, but tasty. The rice cakes wrapped in banana leaves were the perfect finger food for a party.

I love ordering egg rolls here for parties. My non-​Vietnamese friends love them! You get 3 for $ 1 and can call ahead to place a large order. They also have yummy salads and desserts. Their Banh Bao isn’t so flavorful though, but everything else I’ve had here is awesome! Oh but I haven’t eaten in the restaurant side ever.

There is some kind of deli operation on the site, but I have only eaten in the restaraunt. This place isn’t for everyone I’m sure, it’s kind of dirty and rundown, definately not a first-​date destination. I’ve had the house special soup and another kind of soup but don’t remember the names. Both were flavorfull and filling, but contained a lot of tendon, fat, etc. so again, not for everyone. My wife had the spring rolls, which were average. The best aspect was the price, soup for $ 6.50 ($ 7 with tax ?) and the spring rolles were like $ 3 for 4 large ones or something rediculous like that. Cash only.

The people were really nice (but didn’t speak English very well). The noodles I got were alright, but the soup was gross. I’ll usually eat just about anything, but I couldn’t eat more than a few bites of the soup before I just had to stop.

If you like egg-​roll then this is the best place to get it! This is one of my favorite place to get egg-​roll and fresh noodles for party. It is fairly inexpensive.

I’m actually edging out towards 4.5 stars… Nonetheless, this place is amazing… okay I eat out a lot and I definately know my Vietnamese cuisine… and although this place doesn’t have the freshest and most delicious Vietnamese food you’ll find in Seattle, it is still quite authentic. It’s kind of like a deli/​café/​restaurant adjoined together, which seldom goes wrong. There’s a ton of these adjoining restaurant deli’s in cali and they’re always good… The family that runs this business are super nice and cordial. Food comes out relatively fast and is made fresh, some ingredients however such as their salad isn’t so fresh. but you really can’t blame them with an economy like this… anyways my parents and I ordered the bun mang vit, banh beo, banh hoi, iced coffee and iced tea and it all came out to be 20 bucks… seriously their prices are sooooo cheap and portions are big. Definately will be back for more!

I am giving this place a ³⁄₅ star because I’ve only been here for their Banh Mi’s.
I hear their noodles and egg rolls are in fact delicious, but i haven’t bought it.
i ordered a banh mi dac biet, and it wasn’t what it was supposed to be, but it was still delicious.
i hear they are big for catering… they also serve food in the small area next to it. and i think i’ve had their phở when i was younger, but i can’t remember.
i’ll probably come back for their noodles, which i hear, are good!

Good for 3 things:
Goi, banh uot, banh hoi.
Also, only good to buy stuff to go. The space next door seems scary and we usually buy catering for big parties anyways.
One of the downside, you can’t buy some of the stuff in small quantities to sample. Say you want eggroll, there are none around for you to buy 3 or something. So beware, just buy stuff for catering!
And that’s all I wrote, well yeah because I’ve never tried anything else.

I’m REALLY picky with my viet food. I came here with the boyfriend and we picked up 2 pounds of Banh Cuon (came out to be about 10 really big pieces of it) for a total of $ 7. This is one of my favorite dishes ever, and I’ve been desperately searching for a place in Seattle to find this.
While this wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, it’s definitely passable and satisfied my craving. I’d like to come back and try the Banh Beo. YUM.

For eight years now I have explored the gastronomic wasteland that starts at I-​90 and extends all the way to 405 on Rainier Avenue. Lo though I drive through the valley of death cheating driving school dropouts and am besieged on all sides by the tyranny of zombie jaywalkers I search on. With one eye on the road and one scanning the boarded up store fronts and nail salons for some glimmer of hope, and bright spots do exist.
Toshio’s teriyaki church, serves some fine chicken, with a side salad covered in ranch and an ample serving spiritual guidance on the wall. The first taco bus I found in Seattle still serves a mean lengua mulita with a brass caped smile. Although these days you could throw a piñata and hit a taco bus in this Seattle. Da Pino has left us, but served some damn good meat in its time.
Tucked into a run down mini mall with a Mexican video store lies the latest find. Van Loi boasts the kind of façade that has scared off more than it’s fair share of urban pioneers on their way to have overpriced BLT’s amongst the screaming children and head ache inducing techno-​color tones of Geraldine’s counter. Yet, when one drives by at lunch it is often full of high school kids from Franklin high, and now I know why.
Entering the empty room in the late afternoon the two people at the counter seemed surprised and happy to see us. A foreign version of dancing with the stars blared on the television perilously hanging on the wall. A small menu board hangs from the ceiling and sways back forth with the commotion of the kitchen. On it is a scant selection of five different types of meat for the traditional Bánh mì sandwiches. This menu may be small, but there is other food piled all over the counter. Our hosts couldn’t really explain what it was, but we ordered anyway. A very excited woman showed as the large selection of supplies and she had bought in her bag to take home and suggested we do the same.
I was worried when I ordered the pork sandwich (3.00) and the cook came out and pulled some freezer burned pork in saran wrap and asked me if that was what I wanted (he put it back in the freezer). I was worried again when he took the baguette and threw it in the microwave. Julie skipped the whole thing and ordered a steamed bow (1.00).
Unlike the usual bow stuffed with sweet pork, this one had two types of meat with pees and carrots! The sandwich came stuffed with delicious pork, rice noodles, carrots and jalapeños. On the tables were the usual tasty hot sauces and some kind of purple glue like paste, not sure what that was. On our way out we found a pile of something wrapped in banana leaves I asked what they were, the lady couldn’t tell me, so I ordered one, she gave us five, for a dollar. When I unwrapped it I found some mystery meat in the middle of some kind of translucent pillow. I’m not sure what it was, I know it was tasty, but I’m sure I’ll be back to try and figure it out.