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Pho Tre Bien
Rating Details »
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Private Lot
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- Yes
- Good for:
- Lunch, Dinner
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
13 reviews for Pho Tre Bien
Food - 4/5 - I had a grilled pork Banh Mi and it was amazingly delicious! The meat was tender and succulent with a nice smokey flavor. The french roll was chewy and crusty (exactly like you'd expect) and filled with delicious pickled veggies, cucumbers, cilantro, and jalapeno. My only complaint? The prices. They're a bit higher than most other Vietnamese restaurants I've been to, but even so, Tre Bien's prices were reasonable. Expect to pay around $8-15 per person.
Atmosphere - 5/5 - This is easily the nicest Vietnamese restaurant I've ever been to. The outdoor area, which is actually closer to a sun room with a koi pond, was beautiful. The interior was nicely decorated and felt surprisingly comfortable and upscale without being pretentious.
Service - 3/5 - Our waiter was attentive and brought out the food quickly after ordering. He spoke very little English, however, and had a hard time understanding our questions/requests. If you don't speak Vietnamese (or French?), talk slowly and be patient.
Overall, Pho Tre Bien lived up to its name with a four star rating. The food was delicious and the atmosphere relaxing and comfortable. It's a bit on the higher side for Vietnamese, but still quite affordable. If you're ever in the area, Pho Tre Bien is definitely worth a try.
Here's the deal, I like their food. The food is good, I like the spring rolls, I like the pho, and I like the fried banana for dessert, food-wise this place is a total 4!
Call me conservative, but when I was educated in the ways of pho I learned that one of the KEY elements is that it is supposed to be cheap. It doesn't matter how much you dress up the pho place, a bowl should at most cost $7, AT MOST! That's where Tre Bien loses a star, the bowl was like $10. Now I'm not being cheap, even though I'm poor, but a $10 bowl of pho is just plain wrong! Can't say I blame them though, as far as I can tell this is the only pho joint in this town, so they can dictate the price of noodle soup, but I bring gospel from everywhere else and I say NO to overpriced pho.
It does seem like a good, if not the only place in El Paso to meet Asian girls, so I'll probably still be visiting this place...
When I lived in Las Cruces, I'd make the trip to El Paso just to eat some bun at Pho Tre Bien with my bun buddies, Ray and Bobby. That was when Pho Tre Bien was at it's old location on Viscount, of course. Bobby was new to Vietnamese food. Our first time there, the server of course brought a plate of garnishments to the table (typical basil, cilantro, mung bean sprouts, lime) and Bobby the novice, thinking it was salad or something, took a handful of basil and shoved it in his mouth! I'd never seen such a thing, nor have I seen anything like it since!
I've been to the new location on Gateway East once while visiting and we ordered a number of dishes to share family-style. Perhaps it's that I've tasted better Vietnamese food since moving to San Diego, or perhaps it's that the effort spent on food preparation at Pho Tre Bien is less now, but it just wasn't the same as in the days of yore.
The new location is... um, rainforest-like. The service was poor, but was with a smile. (Maybe the restaurant is too big and spread out to stay on top of so many tables...?) The owner came and spoke to us a bit and apologized. Eh.
Since Vietnamese food choices in El Paso/Las Cruces/Juarez are limited, and because I'm deeply nostaglic for my trips to Pho Tre Bien on Viscount, I'll stick with 4 stars. As well, I have to give Pho Tre Bien propers for the best vegetarian bun ever. It's lemongrass-chile sauteed tofu, which compares very favorably to other restaurants' vegetarian bun offerings -- usually just plain, flavorless fried tofu on rice noodle.
***2.5 stars***
walking in here, i really wanted to like this place. It was a little chilly outside, so we sat inside. on a warm day, they have this amazing covered patio area with a small coy fish pond. the inside had nice vietnamese paintings and nice decor. there was a bar on the side that we didn't try but looked nice.
the food, on the other hand, left little to be desired. what a dissappointment. we started off with spring rolls, which were dry, small, and not very tasty at all. i had the buon thit nuong dish. This is actually one of my favorite vietnamese dishes, and this place just mess it up. it came in this boat shaped dish that wasn't very user friendly. I also had a taste of the pho broth, which was bland compared to every Pho place i've been to.
I did feel bad for the waitress (maybe she was the owner). she was nice, tried her best to service the whole room, and she clearly needed help and looked overwhelmed.
I have no idea what happened to my review of Po Tre Bien so I'll give the condensed version. As others have noted, its not compared to other food on the east or the west coast. Nor does it compare to eating in Vietnam. What it doe sdo is give you a decent plate and some bubble tea. bubble tea is great, and the fact that there is bubble tea in el paso makes me want to give Pho many stars.
I was bummed that I did not arrive at a time to listen to the local Casio rock out and instead has to listen to the sounds of the waterfall and bubbling brook.
Food: 4
Service: 4
Value: 1 1/2
So I had a craving for pho and since we drove past this place a few times, I decided to try it out. Being from Southern California, I suppose I had some expectations.
Externally, the place is like any other restaurant. Similar to the places in Los Angeles, but I walked in and it gave me this weird vibe that it's going to be expensive.
I looked at the menu and, yup, my concerns came true. Definitely overpriced. But since I hadn't had a good sit-down place this trip to El Paso, I decided to splurge a little bit.
2 Shrimp spring rolls came with a small amount of peanut sauce. It came... on a boat. I looked around but didn't see T-Pain. The spring rolls were definitely softened (re: Americanized) in order to appease everyone.
The bowl came along with a side-plate of herbs, jalapenos, lime, and bean sprouts. I was a little disappointed in the size of the large. Was the regular-sized meant to feed children? The broth was definitely toned way down compared to a lot of other Vietnamese places I've eaten at. The taste of it was quite good, but it was also toned down to appease everyone. The most authentic part of this meal was the uncooked bean sprouts and the tripe.
Speaking of the tripe, I added the tripe to my order. There's a "Large rare steak, brisket, tendon, and tripe" dish for a dollar more. So I'm not sure why I got charged $2.50 (oh by the way, that's also not on the menu) to add tripe to my bowl.
Two spring rolls with shrimp: $5.45
Large rare steak and brisket: $8.95
Extra tripe: $2.50
Tax and tip.
So while the food was pretty good, I wouldn't consider it authentic by any stretch of the imagination; however, being the only place in town (and I'm pretty sure they know it, so they can charge whatever), it's not bad. Just be ready to spend about $15-20 per person.
PS. I didn't see a bottle of Sriracha sauce (unless it's in the ketchup bottle) on the table. Total loss of street cred there.
As an official Californian Vietnamese Food Lover, I really can't say that I'm too impressed by Pho Tre Bien. Upon moving to El Paso, I decided one of the most important things to was the highly-rated-yelp recommended restaurant. I was really surprised that Vietnamese cuisine would be such a top-ranked restaurant on Yelp, but that's a different story.
To test out the quality of the Viet food, the bf and I had an order of pho and bun (vermicelli). Having not eaten pho at a restaurant in a while, we decided to splurge and pay the $10 for a large bowl of pho, something that would be unheard of in CA. Yes yes, I know El Paso isn't California.
When the bowl of pho came, we were extremely disappointed. Judging from the order of medium pho at the table next to us, the large bowl of pho was basically a medium order in a larger bowl, just with more soup. Well...ummm, okay I guess. What made it a crime though, was that my large bowl of pho came with about 3 slices of beef total. Maybe my expectations were too high, but isn't everything supposed to be bigger in Texas!? Well, I guess not everything.
When we asked our server if a large bowl of pho is only supposed to include merely 3 piece of thinly sliced meat, she said yes and asked us if we would like more - "duh" would have been my response if I wanted to be a difficult customer. She came back with a plate of beef for the pho, which I suppose made it a tad bit better, but we were still disappointed.
Time came to get the check, and she handed us a folded receipt from her pocket, it didn't list the extra meat, "Cool," we thought, "Maybe they realized how ridiculous tiny their portions were." I handed her my credit card, and when the bill came back, I received a fresh receipt which included an extra portion of meat, already charged to my credit card. Alright, now I don't mean to sound cheap or anything, because I would have gladly paid for the stupid meat, but who in the world takes your credit card, tell you they were going to charge you one price, and then comes back charging you more!? Isn't that illegal? This really pissed me off, but considering we were the only two Asians in the restaurant, and we wanted to (maybe) come back again in the future, I didn't make TOO much of a fuss, because they probably would remember us.
Anyway, to Pho Tre Bien's credit, the vermicelli actually tasted decent, and is correctly portioned. Sure, it's a tad on the expensive side (compared to CA i mean), but it's pretty tasty. I don't think it's tasty enough for me to go back a 3rd time though.
Dropped by last week and was unimpressed. Overpriced food that did not even compare to the Vietnamese food I was used to on the east and west coast.
I love this place. i've been going here since they changed locations. It's even cooler now since they have a nice outdoor patio with a water fountain and a koi fish pond. I'm a big pho freak and i always order pho and a vietnamese chicken sandwhich.. thai bubble tea too. it's always great. Everything always tastes so fresh!
I dream of the vegetarian crepe.... My mouth just watered. I love the new location also, it is so nice. I really recommend sitting in the patio, if you're able to. It's a tad pricey but I feel that it is worth it. The service was really good too. We went really late, 30 mins til closing time, and the staff was still really nice to us and didn't try to kick us out or made us feel uncomfortable. I recommend it to anyone who isn't afraid to try something new!
For El Paso not to bad. I love their porch, with asian style garden, little bridges and water, fountains etc. Unfortunately it is right next to I10, so you have a constant background noise of cars.
The food is ok, nothing exceptional, but good. The portions are huge, so beware.
All in all you get good value.
Now, now for all those you have gave this place a so-so rating, you must of ordered the wrong thing because this place is authentic and deliciious. First off, the restaurant has a beautiful decor expecially the outside patio, which is a perfect place to impress your date. The outside patio is inclosed and consists of waterfalls and a gorgeous pond with koi fish and water turtles. Now to the food, it is authentic to the bone,trust me my co-worker is Vietnamese, and the plates are plentiful. For starters you have to get the four seasons rolls. it consists of four different types of rolls. Another type of roll that you must get is the grilled salmon spring roll, this is to die for really!! They have all different types of pho, which is type of soup, ranging from brisket to shrimp to rare beef and tendons. Also on the menu are different types of rice and vermicilli dishes. The crispy noodle with shrimp and beef and the charbroiled shrimp with pork vermicilli plates are very good plates. The clay pot fish is something different but so,so good. Prices are affordable for the amount of food they serve you So with this said if you are in the mood for something different and delicious, Pho Tre Bien is the place to go.......
Oops, my GPS didn't pick upon this new location! The vegetarian crepe was excellent. However, the three-color dessert wasn't so awesome. There was a lot of ice, and the sweet parts were flavorless. I enjoyed sitting in the covered patio with the nice garden decorations. The prices of the dishes were a bit high than other Vietnamese restaurants I'm accustomed to; my boyfriend attributed it to needing to pay for the expensive-looking decor.