...., 11/15/2009
Reviewer: Eddy Woo
from Santa Barbara, CA
so clean!.......
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Get better service, 10/2/2009
Reviewer: Barbara
from Santa Barbara, CA
The food here is great buuuuuutttt you need better waiters or train them better. I know we went during lunch time but waiting 10 min for them to even ask us about our drink order. come on now!!!! LemonGrass Chicken the best!!! mmmmm Train your waiters and the one down on the end of State too!!!
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best food in the tri-counties, 8/28/2009
Reviewer: thomas
from Santa Barbara, CA
the food was fresh, healthy, and flavorful. i love it and there service is quick with a great attitude. always a great experience, i come weekly. great for dates, reasonably priced. if i want to be really picky portions could be a little bigger, but i am happily full and don't over eat
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More food please, 5/31/2009
Reviewer: Mark
from Santa Barbara, CA
Have been there before and was impressed enough to add them to our list of restaurants for our weekend in SB. We got eggrolls as an appetizer and they were very good. Combined with the service, our visit was on good footing. Then our entrees - Seafood Hot Pot and a Chicken-Ginger dish - arrived. The Chicken-ginger dish lacked chicken and all the chicken was dark meat (for those people not dark meat fans this was a disappointment) as was the lack of spice. The Hot pot lacked seafood, especially when you consider the price. It tasted fine but there wasn't much to it unless celery is your idea of seafood.
We might go back but we'll think about it first.
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Very Good, 5/1/2009
Reviewer: Jessa
from Santa Barbara, CA
I'll be eating here again. Enjoyed the Papaya salad and a curry dish. Nothing bad to say about it, a great LOCAL(!) establishment. I wish people would stop supporting fast food chains on State St. and eat at places like Saigon. Delicious!
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Good Pho, 4/16/2009
Reviewer: Susan
from Santa Barbara, CA
I was delighted with this restaurant. I walked in and sat right away. My drink order was delivered right away and I then ordered the Pho soup and it was delivered to my table almost what seemed like - immediately. I asked for some additional veggies for the soup and they were delivered quickly as well.
Only once did I have to ask for a refill of my iced tea.
Very pleasant staff.
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Best Vietnamese in SB? There Aren't Very Many I Guess, 1/24/2009
Reviewer: John B
from Santa Barbara, CA
Saigon In and Out : they used fresh ingredients but lacked the depth of flavor found at other Vietnamese places I have eaten in. For example, spring rolls used romaine rather than mache and peanut sauce was bland. Service is easily fixed, but my experience included: No host when I walked in for the first time - not sure if I should have ordered at the counter or grabbed a table; Multiple servers asking me the same question; Plenty of water, but nobody around when I wanted to purchase another "33" with my lemongrass chicken over rice vermicelli; I received my main course just at the time I started eating the appetizer; I used a credit card, and they wrote "Cash" on the tip line on the bill - but I had only a couple of bucks, therefore the server lost out. Finally, the decor will need a few more paintings or something to lower the sound level. Overall a good start, but I felt more "out" than "in".
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Confused Servers - no leadership, 1/8/2009
Reviewer: Bob
from Santa Barbara, CA
Food, as usual, was good. However, they can't seem to understand what service is. After appetizer last night, we waited and waited to have someone take our order. Finally had to flag someone down, but apparently she didn't give our order to the kitchen. After waiting 20 minutes for our food, I literally had to stand up and stop our waiter in his tracks (he had not bothered to acknowledge us after another person had taken our order). He said it would be right out. It finally was - 10 minutes later. In the meantime tables all around us were seated, served, and finished before we got our order. No one bothered to apologize or ack. that they had screwed up. Waiters were very confused and gave us the impression that this was their first day on their first job. Where is the supervision!
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Great food, no relax., 1/6/2009
Reviewer: Natalie
from Santa Barbara, CA
The food is tasty, the music is harmonic but whenever I come here for lunch, unlike the other restaurants, this place always makes me feel like someone arguing inside the kitchen. The cooks speak too loud that I can hear from the door. Anyway, it helps me shorten my lunch and yield the seat for the others.
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Great food as always, but horrible sunday service, 11/30/2008
Reviewer: S.E.
from Santa Barbara, CA
Stopped in at Saigon In & Out on State... and for the second time in a row received horrific service. Actually, no service. After a 15 minute wait, we decided to get up and get our own menus, since one of the five people working could not be bothered to acknowledge our table. The huge restaurant wasn't even as busy as I have seen it. Anyway, someone took our order and then someone else asked us if we'd like menus (after our food arrived). The staff was completely confused about our table. While our food did eventually arrive, and tasted great as always... our quick in and out lunch ended up taking two hours, because of the long waits. Our check never arrived. While tempted to just get up and abandon our uncared for table, we went to the back to ask for our check. Which we were handed four possible checks and told to pick which one was ours. Odd behavior for such an established restaurant. We receited what we had eaten and ended up paying $40 for two people... for pho... at lunch. Hmmm. Did they raise their prices. I think I'll stick with their Milpas location or go to the great Noodle City in Goleta. After two similar experiences at the State Street location, I am done with it.
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I Love this Place!
Reviewer: John Thyne
from Santa Barbara, CA
Saigon In & Out on State Street is one of the most refreshing lunches or dinners in town! The food is always brought quickly and the fresh ingredients are obvious. Replete with many fresh Vietnamese spices, the shrimp rolls and curry are outstanding! Only real troopers should brave the noodles but most dishes are available over rice. Outstanding place for vegetarians and meat lovers alike! Service is normally very attentive though most speak little English. Particularly fun drink options include authentic Vietnamese coffee or coconut juice served in a real coconut.
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Great!
Reviewer: Laura
from Santa Barbara, CA
I had never tried Vietnamese food before and my friend suggested we try Saigon In and Out. I'm glad she did because it was absolutely delicious! I loved wrapping the spring rolls in lettuce, cilantro, and mint - what a delicious spin on the spring rolls I'm used to getting at Thai restaurants. The service was a little spotty but at least was friendly. I will definitely be back!
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Great food good service
Reviewer: Marla
from Santa Barbara, CA
The food is wonderful. Best Vietnamese here-( Of course if we were vying for a place at the best in San Francisco Vietnamese - it might be a different story.)
I love this place! The servers are lovely and try very hard.
The coconut juice is a great start, very healthy, the 5 types beef is a fantastic dish unfortunately one of the beef is wrapped around a shrimp so note that before you order if you do not eat seafood, As the other comments about English , HEY most of you voted that Spanish should be in all the banks and now I have to press 2 to even hear english in this country, and in traffic court they do a half hour in spanish before we even hear our American English tongue- Give it a break or vote for english to come back or add another 150 languages to be fair. I don't mind VIetnamese accents in a Vietnamese restaurant SO give it a break- most adults on jaywalking barely know their own names let alone english.
They restaurant is great the food and the accent is Vietnamese!
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Some people are just ignorant
Reviewer: Steve
from Santa Barbara, CA
This place is great. The food is tasty and the service is friendly. Some advice: order by number. All the dishes are numbered. Andrea, in regard to your previous post, I think you need to learn how to spell before advising other people to go back to school to learn English. English is probably their second language. What's your excuse? "oder"??? Did you mean "order"? Do you go to an Italian restaraunt and just order "pasta" and expect the staff to know what kind of pasta you want? Do you go to a Mexican restaurant and just order a "burrito" and expect the staff to know what kind of burrito you want? Maybe if you knew what you wanted, it would be easier to take your "order."
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Do they speak English?
Reviewer: Andrea.
from Santa Barbara, CA
This place looks huge and the waiters have to say "hi, how are you?" too loud so that you can hear them.
we often go there , sometimes service is great and sometimes its awful because it takes too long to return our check and changes back. we seldom call for oder take out, we have some problem with the guy on the phone, he doesn't understand what we talks about and he can't figure out our oder. He talks and explains on and on, then i say "oh my god",i just want beef noodle soup and he tells me so many different kind of beef,lablalalbbbb......
i think they need to go back to school and learn how to speak english.
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Great Food - Good Service
Reviewer: Carlos
from Santa Barbara, CA
I ate a great lunch here today. I ordered the #51 (Can't pronounce it)which was small piece of fried pork over rice vermicelli. It was a perfect portion size as I ate the entire portion and was not overly stuffed. Along with a coke, the bill was under $10.00. A great deal
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Service has improved
Reviewer: Kristen
from Santa Barbara, CA
I'm not sure if the staff got word of their horrendous reviews on service or what. I've gone the past 2 Tuesday nights and have had excellent food and the service was also very good. There were about 4 different people waiting on us and the food was delivered so fast that it makes me wonder how those egg rolls got fried so quickly. The only slight negative was waiting a little too long for our check & credit card to get returned to us last night.
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Comfort food mmmmm
Reviewer: Barbara
from Santa Barbara, CA
Nothing ever comes close to mom's cooking but this is pretty close. I miss Vietnamese food since I’ve moved away from home and I was SOOO happy this was opening near my work. I can do a hop and a skip and I’m there! I am tired of all the California fusion over priced restaurants here. I like the portions and price. It satisfying and hits the spot. The service can be better. They are very slow in getting us water, didn’t smile, waited forever for our check and they applied our check to some other table and told us we didn’t pay enough. Very embarrassing…they didn’t speak English very well so we try to tell them that weren’t our check because we gave them the correct amount. Other then that very good food just improves on staff. I go at least once a week!!! It’s nice to have a comfort food restaurant in town that’s not over priced!!!
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Great addition to State Street
Reviewer: liana
from santa barbara, ca
The food was awesome, the prices were reasonable, great addition to this area of state street, food came out fast and was delicious. It took about 10 mins to get our check then after paying cash, the waiter didnt return our change. We had to flag down a waiter to get our change and they asked us how much we paid? Talk about confusion on their part. Wont be back when im on a time restraint.
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Good Food, Poor Service
Reviewer: China Girl
from Santa Barbara, CA
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the food, but the service couldn't be any slower. Asked for water on 3 different occasions and still didn't get it before I had to leave. Asking for the check is just as bad. Wait staff looks confused, like they have never waited tables before. If you have the time to wait around for the staff, then that's fine, but for everyone trying to get a bite for lunch, one hour is NOT enough.
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Great addition to downtown
Reviewer: Sabrina K
from Santa Barbara, CA
It's nice to have a great Vietnamese restaurant in the downtown area. Now we have them everywhere in Santa Barbara. We ate at this restaurant last week, just 2 weeks after they opened. Service was quite fast though none of the workers smiled and the food was excellent. Good portions, nice presentation and tastes great.
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Please eat here.
Reviewer: Steve
from santa barbara
Oh my gosh!!!!!!!!!!!
This could possibly be the best thing that has happened to Santa Barbara since Michael Jackson moved here. Just kidding : )
But, its nice to have a little bit of spice and authentic cuisine in a land full of over price fusionistic California cuisine .
I recommend this place to anyone wanting a healthy meal and great dining experience.
My favorite dish is the Tufo Currie with vermicelli Rice noodles. paired the dragons and angels amber ale.
Cheers,
-Steve
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Great food for a great price!
Reviewer: eric
from SB
Just as good as the one on Milpas but closer to my house. Spring Rolls are very good and fresh, my Favorite is #51. Dinner this good under $10 , can't beat it.
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Great food!
Reviewer: susan
from Santa Barbara
The food is always consistant and great. Most dishes are healthy and affordable. I cant believe it has only been a couple of weeks this place is open and today for lunch there was a line out the door and all the tables were full. I guess the word is out!
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A favorite to return to!
Reviewer: Lisa Hill
from Santa Barbara
I go often to their Milpas location to order their delicious cold vermicelli noodles with chicken and Vietnamese iced coffee! The new location is convenient to my work and I had a scrumptious chicken curry over noodles yesterday. My coworker had the same and loved it. We ran into another colleague who loved the crispy noodles with beef on top. They also have lots of tofu dishes and healthy salads. A lot of dishes are served with fresh basil, bean sprouts and mint. I am in heaven!!!!! I think I've gone to most of the Vietnamese restaurants in town and this and Noodle City are my favorites. As a new restaurant they may have some growing pains but in time the service promises to match that of the always-kind owner.
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First Time Visiter - Good Food
Reviewer: Matt
from Santa Barbara, CA
My girlfriend and I went here for the first time because we wanted a quick take out order. We both got the Com Chien w/ chicken plus an order of egg rolls. The food was good and the price wasn't bad (like $24), at least compared to other places on State. The best news was that it was like 9:30pm and they were open! It's nice to have a decent place open past 9pm that serves something other than burgers and fries. We'll be back.
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Go to Milpas one instead
Reviewer: Jennifer Lam
from Goleta
I really liked the food at Saigon in and out but their new location was a real disappointment. The restaurant is so large it's hard to get attention from the servers because they have to walk a distance from table to table and from kitchen to the tables. I ordered spring rolls as usual, and the accompanied peanut sauce came out terrible. It was too watery and not tasty at all. The noodle soup was even worse ( I had seafood noodle soup). Seafood was not fresh and the broth tasted like instant pho soup. I will not go there again, I'll go to the one on Milpas.
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Yay!
Reviewer: Bethany
from Santa Barbara
I am so excited that Saigon In and Out opened another location on State Street. I dined there Friday evening. The food and service was just a good as their location on Milpas.
I saw many people stopping by the front door, peer in, only to leave. I wanted to yell "Come back!! You won't be disappointed!!"
I hope this new location experiences much success and is in the neighborhood for years to come!
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