Le Soleil Authentic Vietnamese Cuisine
Category: Vietnamese [Edit]
Neighborhood: Inner Richmond133 Clement St
(between 2nd Ave & 3rd Ave)
San Francisco, CA 94118 (415) 668-4848
- Price Range: $$
- Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
- Parking: Street
- Attire: Casual
- Good for Groups: Yes
- Good for Kids: Yes
- Takes Reservations: Yes
- Delivers: No
- Take-out: Yes
- Waiter Service: Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
- Outdoor Seating: No
- Good for: Lunch, Dinner
- Alcohol: Beer & Wine Only
64 reviews
Neighborhood: Outer Richmond
"PPQ is crap; Thanh Long's fried everything will make you feel sick. For Vietnamese crab, you go to La Vie. i almost got suckered into…" read more »
106 Reviews for Le Soleil Authentic Vietnamese Cuisine
The imperial rolls are amazingly crispy and delicious! The service was great and at about $8 a plate you can't go wrong at this place. We ordered the crab fried rice and some pork which was great. I can't believe this place isn't French though. Le Soleli? How random. Especially, since it's right across the street from a fine French restaurant.
I've been here several times over the past... at least 6 years. They've gone through a lot of ownership changes so I've seen the staff, decor, and food change. I'd say my 18th birthday dinner here a long time ago was way more memorable than the dinner I had here a few nights ago -- well not just because of the fact that it was my birthday, but food-wise too!
The food is good, but nothing spectacular. I wouldn't call it authentic Vietnamese cuisine, but it's definitely not fusion either. Can't go wrong with the bo luc lac! The mango salad was highly disappointing -- the mangoes were sweet and mushy; in traditional Vietnamese cuisine, they should be green (or at least more on the sour side than sweet) and crunchy.
Important to note: If you want the crab, make sure to call ahead of time and let them know! They don't have it on hand because they buy the crab fresh from the market to order.
I like this place a lot when I'm not in the mood for greasy-spoon Vietnamese. The bomb: imperial rolls, pho soup, oxtail stew, and much more. Reasonable prices, friendly, and low-key.
We ate family-style with some meat-eating friends on one half of the table, vegetarians-only on the other half. The meat eaters ordered the Seafood Curry and Ox-Tail stew. Garlic beans and other tofu products were on the vege side. The portions were small and prices were moderate to high. With that combination, you're basically never going to win me over unless the food is absolutely spectacular. Overall, the food did nothing to "wow" me or offend me. Thus, the three stars.
I ordered the Mango Salad and Eggplant Tofu Curry to go and it was equally small-proportioned, inoffensive and unspectacular for $23.00 (including tip), I'm sad to report.
However, the Banh Xeo was perfect in proportion and taste and made for a great appetizer. It's pretty much the only reason to go out of my way to return to this restaurant.
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When I'm in the mood for white table cloth Vietnamese food - I eat here. So yummy - an awesome option when you're not in the mood to wait for Burma Super Star. Everything is good here: especially the Imperial Rolls and the Vietnamese Crepes!!! The Veggie curry is great too.
Over the past several years, I've watched as Clement Street has evolved from a pedestrian-scary (crosswalks + rolling four-way stops = get the hell outta the way) strip of Asian restaurants and markets of sometimes questionable nature into a boulevard destination for great dining and even some shopping and pampering (Peche Mignon, Ginger Day Spa - neither of which I've checked out, but both of which look alluring). One of the great mainstays this whole time has been Le Soleil vietnamese restaurant.
Le Soleil is the place you head to when you want your food to satiate, your wallet not to cry, and service to be steady. My husband and I have taken to getting a lot of take-out from here as of late, but it's a pleasant sit-down environment as well - especially after a recent sprucing up of the space a couple of years ago. The owner/manager is always friendly and easy-going, and ensures his staff is as well.
So ignore the waft of pizza from Giorgio's on the corner, step inside, kick back with a thai iced tea (yes, it's a Vietnamese restaurant - I don't care), and order the beef luk lok, barbecued pork and garlic noodles. I can't confirm how authentic it is, but it sure does taste damn good.
I first ate dinner at Le Soleil in 1988. I will be introducing new friends to it next week. My family helped sponsor several Vietnamese refugee families (in Florida) in the 70's so I grew up eating Vietnamese food - with a French flare. Do not be so naiive as to think there is only one style of Vietnamese food. That is like saying southern cooking is "US cuisine." The service if friendly and I have always been treated like family. The Vietnamese-French fusion menu is delightful. It has the subtlety and complexity of French colonial with the fresh, light touch of Vietnamese. Their raw marinated beef is delicate and I love the crackle when you eat if with the rice crackers it is served with. Their flaming bowls are succulent. I also have always enjoyed the crab asparagus soup. So, I live in Santa Cruz County and am going to drive to The City with friends to introduce them to this jewel on Clement.
This is a decent spot. The eggplant and tofu yellow curry was quite good over rice, the five spice chicken tasted good but was quite greasy. The prices are reasonable. The waitstaff sometimes disappear in the back.
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MMMMMM! i Luv dis place.its really good. the banh xeo is really good
and the claypot is my fav. dis place is really good for dinner and lunch
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WHAT THE FXXX!
It should not be like it.
I ordered Spicy beef noodle soup but the noodle was WAY OVER COOKED and SOGGY!
WHY WHY WHY, Over cooked soggy noodle?
Over cooked soggy noodle isn't right, No good piece of crap for no matter where you from.
The noodle break between chopstick!
Noodle breaks between chopstick means:
1. use old noodle
2. the noodle isn't fresh made.
3. the noodle is packaged and over cooked.
4. the cook doesn't care for noodle.
5. soggy.
What the Hell is it?
Authentic Vietnamese My Ass!
I know Vietnamese places a lot better than this.
It's too bad because everything else was pretty good.
But a noodle like that, DISAPPOINTED!
BIG DISAPPOINTED!
Eating Noodle is very important thing in my life!
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Yum. I always get the Banh Xeo here (pancake wraps). Very fresh. Comes out with super crisp and fresh veggies to put in your wrap. Very satisfying and close to mom's home cooking. Try the spring roll and the garlic noodles, their classic items. Not cheap and not expensive either. But you are paying for what you get.
Three of us had dinner last night and shared the pot stickers, appetizer sampler, "Look Luck" beef, duck salad and clay pot prawns. Wonderful flavor in each dish but the prawns were a little dry and one diner thought salty. They were still very good. Everything else was so fresh and the flavors came together beautifully. Service was excellent. Very helpful and friendly. Water glasses were never empty and fresh plates came between servings. Wine selection was not extensive but had some good choices. All three wines (by the glass) were good. We have already told some friends to check it out. The atmosphere is a clean, neighborhood cafe feel and there were more empty tables than full ones. Clement Street parking is terrible at 7:00 PM but if you use your imagination there's parking within three blocks. The meal came to about $90.
I tried this place several years ago when I didn't live in CA, my sister used to live nearby. She asked me if I wanted to try catfish, no thank you. But we did, and I liked. The last time we were there in March, we ordered spring rolls, BBQ pork and lemongrass chicken. All very satisfying. The restaurant is pretty clean and service decent. Next time you don't want to wait for Burma Superstar, give this place a shot, you won't be disappointed.
Le Soleil is one of my favorite "not-so-typical Vietnamese restaurants, " you know ones without the word "pho" in its name! Very authentic and not the least bit fusion-esque. Great for lunch or dinner, and everything I've ever ordered is always tasty and fresh. Some of my favorites: lemongrass coconut basil soup (I LOVE lemongrass!), spring rolls you wrap yourself, veggie bird's nest, and lemongrass chicken (told you I love lemongrass!).
Moderate prices, clean and inviting atmosphere, nice wait staff, consistently good food and no wait time makes me coming back to Le Soleil. Plus, I miss Le Cheval in old Oakland (used to work in that area for 6 years), so Le Soleil is a good replacement closer by.
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Good Vietnamese food. I've been here a couple times and each time with a big party. There was so much food that I can't even remember what I ate. The thing I remember was that the food was good! I'm giving it three stars because I feel like they tried to rip us off. We ordered three thai iced teas, and they tried to charge us for six! They also tried to charge us for five imperial rolls when we only had three of those too! That's so unbelievably sneaky. I feel like they tried to slip it in because the bill was so big and there were so many items, and they thought we wouldn't notice. I understand that people make mistakes, but I honestly don't think this was a mistake. How does someone accidently charge for six drinks when there were only three?!?! So that's the reason for my three stars. Because they're SHADY!
I walk by Le Soleil on Clement Street very often, but I never tried it until I read Charmaine B's glowing review recently. After leaving work early thanks to a lengthy meeting that left me without a lunch break I walked into a nearly empty restaurant for an early dinner.
The friendly waiter/server greeted me and seated me at a window side table. The menus are well worn here, and the copy I got was literally falling apart in the middle. The large number of selections on the menu surprised me, and I asked the waiter for additional time so that I could study it better.
I have this stubborn opinion that mixing rice noodles with gravy is always a bad thing yet that's exactly what I ordered on this visit, the Pan Fried Wide Rice Noodles with Chicken and Prawns. I don't often find Hoisin Baby Back Ribs on the appetizer menus of other Vietnamese restaurants so I ordered one of those too.
As I sat slurping from two tall glasses on my table, one filled with ice water and the other with soda, and peered out the window to people-watch the passers-by more restaurant patrons began arriving. It was a short wait before my food arrived.
The noodle dish (pictured) arrived first and it looked really good. The soy sauce-based gravy was very light and actually worked well on this dish which combined lots of chicken with cabbage, celery, carrots, broccoli, zucchini, onions and a couple of prawns on a tightly packed bed of pan-fried rice noodles that actually looked like less than what was on the plate. The combination of flavors was lightly seasoned, and I found that I enjoyed this dish.
The baby back ribs (also pictured) must have needed extra preparation, but it arrived just as I was finishing up on the noodle dish. The ribs certainly had the aroma of barbecue ribs. The soft tender pork was just slightly overcooked as parts of the meat had reached a level of jerkiness. Most of the rib meat retained good moisture though and paired well with the thick, sticky, gooey sauce that tasted much like hoisin sauce and molasses. These were a bit messy to eat but awesome nonetheless.
Overall service is good, and the moderate prices are about the same as other restaurants of this type that I've sampled. I would definitely return.
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So last week I was home (that is: not at work) with what seemed like a cold. I was sniffling, sleeping, not feeling good. In fact I was whining- to myself I might add. If talking to oneself is bad, and answering is crazy, then whining to yourself is total-tinfoil hat-batshit nuts. I'm glad I was able to conquer my mental illness and make it out of the house. Anyhoo, I digress.
Point is, I was feeling under the weather and wanted some chicken soup. Seemed like an appropriate thing to do. Cold+Me= Chicken soup. Simple math. Seeing as how I abhore canned food as much as possible, and how I had been lying in a puddle of self-pity watching terrible daytime TV for several hours, I decided not to go to Arguello Supermarket and get a can of soup. No! I would boldly resist my cold viruses (virii?) and venture across Geary to Clement and get some chicken soup, dammit.
Somehow I ended up at Le Soliel. Probably because I was sick and tired of walking and Soliel was right there. I went in and would've gotten their imperial roll/bbq pork lunch special but I was there for soup! And lo and behold, out comes the most bland soup I've ever had. Even the noodles surprised me at their boring-ness, and I go into a noodle eating situation with every intention that the noodles were boring. These were really, really boring noodles. And the chicken was somehow dry, despite being served in hot soup. Don't understand that one myself, but I took a bite of the chicken and said, "Damn! That's some fucking dry chicken!".
Should've gone to Pho Clement. Oh well, live and learn. I did go home and watch Cool Runnings on cable though, and that cheered me up even though I still get kinda choked up at the end when they crash their bobsled and they all (even Sanka Coffee!) has to carry the sled across the finish line to finish the race. Powerful cinematic moment if you ask me.
Good service, bland food, nice decor. Two Stars.
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If it's entirely up to me where to get Vietnamese food, I prefer eating cheap at some pho place, giant bowl of noodles and beef and mysterious parts like tendon and tripe simmering in front of me.
This isn't that place. When I'm here, at the behest of a friend who seems to prefer this restaurant for Vietnamese food, I order a bowl of cold bun with spring rolls if it is a hot day or a bowl of lemongrass noodle soup with catfish and prawns if it is a cold day. At lunch, these dishes cost around $7 or $8 and the portions are satisfying but not enormous. We also split an order of Vietnamese potstickers, or "hedgehogs" as we like to call them amongst ourselves, as they are round and coated in rice and fried, giving them a rather brown and prickly appearance.
These might seem like odd words to describe food, but the words that somehow come to mind are "benign" and "innocuous." In other words, while there is certainly nothing wrong with the food and I have eaten here on many occasions and would certainly eat here on many more, there's nothing here to particularly excite me.
It's a nice-looking restaurant, though. It's much nicer looking than the pho dives I seem to prefer.
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Eh, I know, I'm in the minority on this one, but I thought Le Soleil was one of the more disappointing vietnamese meals I've had in the city.
Full disclosure before I write more - we were in the mood for pho, and our original destination was closed, so this became plan B. And we came to learn they don't serve pho (at least for dinner).
But the menu was still very appealing, and shared between us:
1. Chicken and pineapple soup
2. Chicken rice wraps
3. Steamed asparagus.
Complaints in order
1. Not nearly enough chicken and pineapple
2. Minimal options to fill the wraps, and the chicken was super oily
3. Perhaps steamed, but then covered in some oil based sauce
It didn't feel healthy or filling.
And when you add in minimal service, to the point where it was at least 15min between our plates being cleared and our check, it clearly was a disappointment.
Others around us seemed to be enjoying much more appealing entrees, perhaps it was our ordering. But I was not impressed, and would not recommend.
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Le Soleil was really my first taste to Vietnamese food. I remember not liking what I had the first time, but that was over two years ago. I HIGHLY recommend going at lunch. They have the most amazing vegetarian pho soup. I also love to get their garlic shrimp with veggies and rice. All on the lunch menu. You can request these at dinner, but they'll charge you like a dollar more per item, which really isn't that bad. Afterwards, head over to Genki and get a crepe!
The food does not justify the price. I ordered three things:
1) Garlic Noodles: Came out cold.
2) Beef Lok Luck: One of the worst version I ever had.
3) Clay Pot Shrimp. 2 tiny shrimp with heads on and 1 tiny shrimp with no head for over $15!
The food was not Americanized Vietnamese, it was not Fusion, it was not authentic, it was just plain bad. The dinner cost more than 40.00 and was not worth a single penny.
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The colonial Vietnamese restaurant formula strikes again: villa storefront, French name, menu in English, abundance of "lemongrass" this and "exotic" that. If you still find that sort of thing amusing, but have the self-respect to avoid Danted Sloor, you could visit Le Soleil.
Actually, Le Soleil used to be a good Vietnamese restaurant, even if the menu was mostly in English. But now it's something else, with mostly non-VN staff, and the target customer market coming for the newest bourgeois bohemian indulgence, that exotic Vietnam flavor. You know it's a certain type of place when it advertises itself as "authentic." Everything is heavily sugared (and no, it's not just the Southern VN cooking style), and it's a creepy Polynesian-kitch-restaurant flashback that they have a fondness for the varied culinary possibilities of the pineapple. Can I have a mai-tai?
Le Soleil is neither as expensive nor as stupidly pretentious as Danted, the servers are serviceable, and the food isn't terrible. It could be a gentle introduction to Vietnamese food. The lack of spice and seasoning could be a benefit for certain crowds. But the place has limits. Any of the linen-tablecloth Vietnamese restaurants in San Jose would give Le Soleil a smackdown.
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A nice place to grab lunch -- the pork was spot on, and the imperial rolls were addictively yummy.
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I feel the lunch menu is better than their dinner menu. I have tried almost everything on the menu and I have listed below my three favorites.
1) Crab noodle soup - I think they only offer this for lunch and it's usually sold out before 2:00pm.
2) Crab fried rice -actual pieces of crab!!!
3) Combination pan fried noodle with gravy sauce. They put tons of wonderful veggie in it. My only complaint is they're a little stingy on the noodle
Authentic? HA. And I'm always on time.
Their food is nothing close of being authentic. Fucking liars.
Pork Ribs Appetizer - Oh yuck. I tastes like it was boiled first, then glazed with a thick, obnoxiously sweet sauce.
Duck Fried Rice - TRASH.
I hate you Le Soleil.
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My coworker had been raving about this place for weeks. For awhile I think she was eating there weekly. I was leaving work just as she was craving the bass so we walked real fast cuz it was real cold to Le Soleil.
The interior is lovely. (Although I am still wondering how the framed Roman columns fit in with the otherwise Asian decor.) Our table had what appeared to be three small perfume bottles embedded in the center under glass.
I didn't examine the menu as completely as normal since we knew that we were going to order blocks before arriving.
We had the sea bass with the garlic and soy green beans. Sooo good.
Bonus points for offering brown (it looked more red than brown) rice in addition to white rice.
The service was good, but a little sloppy with the water. Our glasses were frequently filled, but a big splash of water was added to our tableclothless table with every pour.
And wear a sweater because it was chilly in there.
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Always saw this place and never went in, until a routine Monday closure at Pot de Pho forced us to look for an alternative tonight. It definitely looked promising, though there was no pho on the menu. Fair enough - this is not a pho kinda place. Still in the mood for soup (feeling under the weather and all), the three of us shared a lemongrass coconut chicken soup. We had to order two bowls because one is not enough for 3 to share. Pretty good...not memorable. Could have used more substance (more chicken, more pineapple...that's their thing). We also shared "steamed" asparagus that came out in a sauce and definitely looked more sauteed than anything else. Again, fair enough...they were definitely tasty asparagus, but not steamed (I know my health-conscious dining pal was peeved).
But the biggest disappointment was with the "Table-side fire grill chicken", with which came rice paper and all the fixings to make small rolls. There was no fire, there was no grill. More upsetting was the fact that we saw a table with a flaming piece of meat that looked amazing. Are we not good enough for a flame? The chicken (and resulting rolls) were good, but not memorable. And frustratingly, as we sat and ate perhaps our ill-ordered items, I had table envy. I wanted that flaming beef at table 2. I wanted those delicious looking rolls at table 4. I wanted the crispy little dumplings at table 7...
If I go back, I'll be sure to order differently...as there's nothing more frustrating than not getting what you thought you were getting. OK service, kinda slow, and water refilling was slow too. Then again, I know I was a total camel tonight and for some reason or another, kept drinking water like it was going out of style. Fair enough.
I won't presume to know how authentic or how "actually Vietnamese" Le Soleil is, because I'm not Vietnamese and I'm not about being all judgy about people's ethnicities (you racist!) and frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
All I know is that this place is hella overpriced and not very good.
Maybe it's like, a shadow of its former glory type thing. Because the walls are plastered in Zagat and newspaper reviews and stuff, but upon closer inspection, wait, is that the Marin Independent Journal? The San Francisco Focus? I mean, it's been like my cat's entire lifespan since the Focus was around, and what the fuck do they know about food in Marin? So anyway, I guess it's not all that shocking.
The dining room is lovely. Which is probably what brought you in from the street anyway. Bathrooms are clean and pleasant, and service is deferential and accurate. So those are all good things. But I would be perfectly happy to eat out of a cardboard box on a stool in a warehouse if the food is awesome. This food, not so much.
For a price point not much lower than Slanted Door, there are some pretty egregious failings in the culinary department.
The vegetarian imperial rolls were so oily they fell apart almost just by looking at them. They weren't especially flavorful, and the sauce was not nuoc mam, but basically just soy sauce. Mango salad was covered in fried rice noodle pieces that tasted like repurposed cooking oil, but if you scraped them off, was fine. Lemongrass chicken with green beans was non-controversial, but could have easily been an $8.00 entree at Eric's in Noe Valley. Which is to say, generically savory. And it was more than $8.00. The kicker was really another appetizer ordered for the table, which arrived after the main dishes, of "five spice" spareribs. If by "five spice" they mean the five spice blend in K.C. Masterpiece, then I guess it makes sense. The price, though, was all wrong.
Everyone has an off night, maybe an off month or two, so it could be that my experience was anomalous. And I hope so, because I wish Le Soleil with their cute little fixtures all the best. But with all the delicious options on Clement... nah.
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Service, fantastic. Wine, cheap buzz. Food, amazing. We ordered 5-6 dishes to share, including a very flavorful (aka too salty) garlic noodles. That's probably the only dish I'd stray away from next time around. Maybe the wine didn't kick in yet at the time of consumption. This is a very upscale French inspired Vietnamese restaurant, so don't expect a random bowl of pho in front of your face.
Yes, it's authentic!
Vietnamese in the kitchen, Vietnamese waitstaff, Vietnamese customers. Very cool.
We walked by about 8:30 pm on a Saturday, and although the restaurant was full, there was no line. We got an estimate of 5 minutes, and two other parties lined up behind us. By 9 pm we were all seated.
The appetizer sampler was a roll-your-own spring roll dish, with various goodies including some very tasty teriyaki-style seasoned beef. More beef with asparagus, and scrumptious ocean scallops were the two entrees we ordered, and we had steamed rice on the side. My Lady ordered tea, which we both enjoyed, and I ordered a Hue beer that tasted a lot like Bitburger. Our waitress told us she was from Hue, but she liked America better because there were more opportunities. I convinced My Lady to try the sticky rice for dessert, which had a nice base of sweet beans and coconut on top. All this joy came to $60.22 + tip. The service was fast, friendly, and attentive, and they earned a nice tip.
I am very happy with this discovery, and I am sure we will return.
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Reasonable and good food here. Good for lunch or dinner. Order the Catfish... crispy and so yummy for dinner. For lunch birdnest dish is ok, mild flavours, but curry chicken in excellent. Best part is the check......you will definitely be surprised given the quality of food
I've walked by Le Soleil so many times over the years but never went in. For some reason, I thought it was a French restaurant, but it's Vietnamese!!
Just had lunch here today with an ex-coworker and it wasn't bad. I liked the decor and the service was excellent. We split the Vietnamese Crepe and the BBQ Pork and Imperial Rolls with Rice Noodles. The crepe was huge and packed full of bean sprouts. I like bean sprouts as much as the next person, but that was a LOT of bean sprouts! The BBQ Pork and Imperail Roll dish was typical. It tasted the same as it does at every other Vietnamese restaurant I've been to.
I tried this restaurant after walking past it many times to get to B Star right next door, and after hearing good things about it from my boyfriend's co-worker.
The restaurant is cute and the lighting is warm and soft, which made everyone look nice. For some reason, at least on the night we went, there was no music. I think it needed music.
I liked the crispy vegetarian imperial rolls, served with leaf lettuce, rice noodles and mint. I loved the salty plum soda, which has a smashed up salty plum in the bottom of the glass! I was a little disappointed with the soft shell crab dish. I know it's not fair to compare to Slanted Door (there's a reason Slanted Door has such a loyal following and you have to make a reservation months ahead of time for a weekend night), but Slanted Door's soft shell crab is so delicately battered and fried and just so delicious and complex tasting... Le Soleil's was heavily battered and fried, so it didn't look like a little crab anymore... it could have been a piece of fried fish, or a piece of fried zucchini, or a piece of fried anything. The oiliness overpowered the crab-ness, and although the portion was very generous (four little crabs), we ate one each and declined the others.
We also ordered a grilled chicken dish, which is served with rice wrappers, and you roll it all up yourself. They give you a stack of plastic steamer separators with the delicate rice wrappers between the separators, but we got an empty stack. I politely explained this to our server (I wasn't mad, I thought it was kind of funny) and he explained to me that between each separator is a rice wrapper... etc.
I explained that I understood, but there really were no wrappers in the stack. After some back and forth he lifted some of the separators and, looking surprised, disappeared with them and came back with the wrappers.
It might have just been an off night for Le Soleil, but we probably won't go back, because it was just okay, and there are other really delicious places so nearby.
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A nice vietnamese restaurant in the Avenues, but when you have aux delice in your hood, why go here?
The food didn't seem that authentic to me but I'm not Vietnamese.
It wasn't exactly bursting with flavor but the service was attentive and they seated us quickly on New Years Eve.
Really great home style cooking. I thoroughly enjoyed my dining experience there. The menu had a nice variety. We ordered beef w/ lemongrass and pan fried noodles with garlic and shrimp. The noodles were a home run. Really really good. Beef was tender and went well with the meal. Iced coffee (a must) also yum. Perfect compliment to a lovely meal.
The place was packed. We had to wait, there were two tables before us and people came in after us and waited to be seated. I'm not sure if they take reservations, but it might be worth it if you don't want to wait during the rush.
The restaurant was really well decorated. I wish I took photos of the tables, they were tempered glass on top of wooden tables with ceramics displayed in between. Lighting was nice and dim enough to be considered romantic if you were going for that. Nice date place! We got a seat in the corner by the window so were more secluded, which I think made for a nice meal.
The service could have been more attentive, but I'm not going to knock them since there were only two servers and no one helping out with the demanding crowd.
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Le Soleil serves up some really tasty and filling dishes. Here's what you should chow down on:
Classic Vietnamese 5-spice Chicken
Sizzling Seafood Platter
We also got the Vietnamese Pot Stickers.
Appetizer, dinner for two, drinks for $42.
I would have given this place 5 stars if it had the one and only dish I was craving. We came to Le Soleil b'c our original pick was too crowded but I wasn't disappointed at all. Le Soleil had a great selection but not overwhelming menu of appetizers, soups, meats, vegetarian dishes, noodles and rice. We started off with the corn, asparagus, and crab soup. This was good after we added a little white pepper. A little thick but still tasty. The imperial rolls are definitely a must order for any vietnamese restaurant and definitely this place. The marinated and sliced pork and shaking beef were excellent choices! The meat was flavorful and tender. The garlic butter noodles with egg was also a nice complement.
Service was excellent and very friendly!
So the dish I was craving you ask....the vermicelli bowl with pork and imperial rolls with the fish sauce - yah, you know it. I'd try to spell it but I'd probably butcher and offend someone. The restaurant actually had all the ingredients for it but didn't offer it on the menu.... Otherwise, they just may have received 5 stars.
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5 stars people! 5 stars!
I gotta say, I've read other reviews that say they don't serve big enough portions. If you feel that way, then you eat too much.
I've been going there for about the last 4 years and it's consistent. It's freaking yummy!!! We usually go there once a month and somehow the staff always seems to remember us. They're really nice people and work as quick as they can to get your food to you. The establishment has definitely improved from what it looked like before. The place is very clean and maybe just a little tight. It's all good though cause the food is worth it.
It definitely isn't one of those dirty and cheap pho joints that you find just anywhere. Don't expect to go here and find yourself a dozen variations of pho. Because of this, it is just a little more expensive than what you would expect from a Vietnamese restaurant. But again, the food is worth it.
If you go, try the friend banana with coconut ice cream for dessert. Sooooooo delicious!
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