Doan’s Restaurant

Can I just say I was happily surprised with dinner here last night (Tuesday). I’m used to their mediocre tasting food as offered during lunch and wasn’t expecting much for dinner but my husband was craving a bowl of phở and this was our closest option in walking distance from our place.
First off, we got there around 7pm and he restaurant was pretty much empty save for two tables that were occupied. With just one server/​hostess working service was a bit slow to get our order but once taken, was pleasant and fine.
We started with a half order (3) salad rolls. They were some of the smallest in diameter salad rolls I’ve seen served but tasty none the less. The peanut dipping sauce was a too runny though for my liking.
I ordered the vermicelli bowl with grilled beef, pork and shrimp. The shrimp were the best part of the dish as they were pretty big and grilled to succulent perfection. The other meats in the dish were decent but nothing special.
My husband ordered the phở dac biet as their phở options were very limited. I didn’t try any but he was happy with the dish.
All in all I would return again for a nice quiet dinner.

Good olé Doan’s! This has become a new lunch favourite for my colleague and I when we want to get away from the office. Even though the restaurant is quite large, it is best to make a reservation for the lunch hour as it gets über busy! We discovered that the hard way.
This is always a good option to go to when you are feeling like soup or a hearty vermicelli bowl. Some of my favourites are the Salad Rolls, Onion Cakes, Spicy Vietnamese Vermicelli Soup with beef and pork, the Curry Chicken Vermicelli Soup and the Vermicelli Entrée containing spring rolls, grilled pork & grilled chicken — Yum! You can’t go wrong with any of these. This last time I chose the Vermicelli Entrée and it was fabulous. The meat was grilled perfectly, the vegetables were fresh and the noodles were a perfect el dente and not sticky. I don’t particularly like fish sauce but they give you a whole bottle of it for you to use. No shortage there! I usually stick to the hoisin sauce or the hot chilli sauce but you don’t need much since the dish is full of flavour.
It is always clean, warm and inviting. Service is quick and to the point. There is never really any small talk or formalities but friendly nonetheless. If you are in the mood for Vietnamese in the downtown area, I would recommend stopping by.

Definitely my go to place for Vietnamese soup and spring rolls. The salad rolls are always fresh and the spring rolls are never over done or too greasy. My favorite soup at Doan’s though is the satay soup. It has the perfect amount of lemon grass and spice. The perfect soup for a cold day!

Delicious food! Love the curry chicken soup and salad rolls are the best I have tasted, they also have great Kim Chee

I love Doan’s. It’s the kind of place you have a «usual» and every time you have it, it’s just as good as the last time. They staff is friendly and speedy so if you don’t have a long lunch it’s a great place to go.

They make one of the best coconut curries I have ever had. I love the hot plate chicken curry dish. The flavor is so tasty that I didn’t need to add any of the chili sauce. Nice big chunks of chicken breast that were cooked just perfectly. My girlfriend had the satay shrimp hot plate. Same thing, very tasty with nice big pieces of shrimp. I also love their Vietnamese Ice coffee. I have eaten here at least 6 or 7 times over the years and have never been even slightly disappointed.

I’ve been taking out and dining here for the last 7 yrs that I realized I owe them a review.
Their phở is actually at par with other popular places (like phở hoa), and I say better than others (Lemongrass, phở & bun). The only other one I like better is the one at 107ave and 111 street, but are now closed.
Salad Rolls are the best! One full order to go for me is one healthy, filling lunch! Again, way better than Lemongrass’s crappy version!
Service is consistently good, and I never had long wait. Sometimes, getting them to bring your bill will take a while, so just get up and pay directly at the counter! :)

Food was very good here. The salad rolls especially exceptional. Phở was decent as well. I did find the price a bit more than comparable places.
I though the service was very good. And was surprised with the syrup dispenser of fish sauce. Is there that much demand for the stuff? Just looked strange.
Would go back for a more detailed review. It suited my needs very well and I was pleased. Parking available in the back in case you are worried about meters in the front.

I ordered the grilled beef with veggies and rice. It wasn’t the best meal I’ve had (I wouldn’t order it again), but the other stuff my friends got was really good! The spring rolls are really tasty too, I recommend getting them as an appetizer.
Overall, a pretty good experience. Clean restaurant setup and good food!

I went here when I was outrageously hungry and I had to wait ages for my food to come. It was 5 minutes before a waiter even came to ask about drinks, another 15 before they took our orders. The food took forever to come and on top of that they messed up my order. I asked for chicken instead of pork and they still gave me pork and no one came around to ask how the meal was so after 10 minutes of waiting, I just ate it because I was so hungry.
But seriously. The service needs to step up quite a few notches. If the waiter isn’t even going to write down your order, it’s obviously going to get messed up. Also they brought our food out at different times so we had to do the awkward I want to eat but I don’t want to finish before you even get your food thing.
When you finally get your food, it’s pretty good. Although that could be because by the time the food gets to you you’re so hungry anything tastes good. I usually get vermicelli bowls or phở, both of which are good entry foods to Vietnamese cooking.
In short, food’s good but if you are actually hungry, go somewhere else because you’ll be waiting 10 years for your meal.

I did not even know this place existed until my mom wanted to meet me there for lunch. Imagine that, my mother knows more about places to dine downtown than I do! Anyways I came here for lunch and it wasn’t busy when I showed up but boy did it get busy as the lunch hour ticked on. The plates here are HUGE, my mom and I most definitely should have split one. The food is pretty good, lots of flavour and as I said, lots of food. The server was pretty good, though my water ran empty a few times. Over all it’s a pretty nice place for a lunch date, I’d come here again.

I knew Doan’s when they were in Chinatown and the place was flaming! Not with vibrant colors and men looking more prettier than me! I mean flaming as in fire fighters and smoke and crispiness!
Two locations: Southside off Whyte and Downtown on 107 Street.
Great food, little pricey when you are looking for Vietnamese food compared to other restaurants however cleaner, fast service, great looking dishes and over all good food.
I love, love, love their Satay soup! They put cilantro in it and I am huge fan of cilantro!

Doan’s is one of those places I just keep coming back to mostly because the service is great and it’s very very fresh. It’s a mix of mostly Vietnamese food with some Chinese food mixed in and I’ve been to both locations southside and downtown and both are quite similar.
If you looking for some awesome phở as well as some traditional Vietnamese vermicelli dishes this is definitely the place.
Let me tell you what I typically get and it’s a great Vietnamese sampler if you’ve never ever been here. I always start off with a great order of Vietamese salad rolls which is shrimp and pork with vermicelli wrapped in rice paper with lettuce. There really Fresh here and it’s quite a big serving. It’s Dipped in peanut sauce so be careful if you have allergies
Next you absolutely have to try the green papaya salad which is unripe green papaya shredded with an amazing fish sauce and beef dressing. I also recommend the mango salad here as well which is just an incredible type of dish similar to the papaya salad very different and very refreshing.
Next is the PHO and I would recommend you start off with the Phở Tai which is the rare beef brisket phở. This soup is just simply amazing cooked for days and When you add all of the other extras like the bean sprouts and lemon juice & the hoisin sauce and some hot sauce and the fresh thai basil it just is an incredible mix and is one of my favourite things to eat. Awesome comfort food.
And last but not least you always want to end up with a Vietnamese coffee which is their version of a strong espresso mixed with condensed milk served over ice and it’s a really nice sweet iced coffee flavor. Definitely a crowdpleaser.
So that’s my typical Doans meal and I hope you enjoy the review and try out this menu the next time you’re there!

I live right by Doan’s so it is a regular of ours. They have the best fried rice I have ever had. It is fluffy, sweet, salty, and just delicious. While they don’t have the greatest service, they do put a lot of effort into their food.

Yum all round! The lemon grass pork
is amazing :)

As others have said, it’s nothing special. It’s not so bad that I would never come again, but it’s not so good that I would specifically come here to eat. I ate there recently with a friend because she suggested it.
I had the spicy vietnamese noodle soup (bun bo hue). It’s not that spicy at all — there’s some red chili oil floating at the top but that was it. I could taste the lemongrass but it was still kind of bland. It only comes with beef shank-​type slices and a few dry pork slices — no meatballs as I think bun bo hue usually has. Also they used phở flat rice noodles and not the usual round kind. Not a big deal except that I really, really like the round kind. At $ 9 a bowl, it was one of the cheaper things on the menu.
The only other thing I’ve had here before is the grilled chicken vermicelli bowl. That’s not bad — I love whatever the chicken is marinaded in — but I remember thinking it was expensive for the amount of food I got, something like $ 12.

This place is located in the heart of downtown and is always packed duing lunch hours and dinners during the week.
Typical service you would expect from an Asian restaurant, however what they may lack in serivce, they make up for with delicious food that is always served fast!
Great for take out too! My favourite dish is by far, the bun ba mau!!!

Well, it’s probably unfair to rate this place the same way I would rate Vietnamese food in the Bay Area, but the five spice chicken was not good by any stretch of the imagination.
The flavor was overly salty an they dump the saucy chicken over the rice so you just cannot escape the bombardment of salt in your taste buds.
It gets really crowded during lunch, so if you can call in your order or something that would be better.

Doans is in a great location that makes it easy for business lunches. It gets busy though, so I recommend making a reservation. We arrived for our noon reservation and were seated in a booth. I ordered my regular vermicilli bowl and this time with the grilled beef for $ 9.45. The beef was a bit oily and wasn’t that tasty, and it was laid upon a bed of noodles. Along the side was lettuce, carrots, and bean sprouts. The fish sauce didn’t add my taste to the bowl though. I finished my beef but not my noodles. The dish was nothing spectactular and I have had better at other restaurants. The service was fine with refills on our water and ample servers around if you need anything. I’m sure I will be back more for the location and business lunchese but I would prefer to eat Vietnamese food elsewhere.

These guys are the Denny’s of Vietnamese food.
If you are looking for good Vietnamese food, this is not the place you go. This is the place you would go out of convenience or lack of options.
They have small portions at high prices. They front an image of being a high class, Vietnamese restaurant but if you have had real, true Vietnamese food, you should see right through the façade.
Their food is OK and I’m sure for people who have never had real Vietnamese food, it would probably be great. But for those of us who eat Vietnamese food all the time, this is not the place to go.
The staff is polite, I’ll give them that. And they do have better service than your typical Vietnamese joint — it’s more Western in that sense.
My advice: If you’re new to Vietnamese food, you may want to check Doan’s out as a means of easing your way into it all. If you’re a more seasoned Vietnamese critic, don’t waste your time here.