Rua Vang Golden Turtle

Since I’ve found this place, I can’t go anywhere else for phở. I always order #1, rare beef and #112 vegetarian spring rolls. They’re by far, the best spring rolls on earth. The food is delicious, service is fast. They’re always busy so they rush and they’re not super friendly, but I never had issues with my orders. I highly recommend!

I love this place. I’d say best phở in Toronto. I’ve been going here for years. I always get phở, #112 spring rolls and #74.

We used to go to Phở Tien Thanh, but once we tried the Golden Turtle, we knew we had to be back. And we have.
It’s a bit more crowded, but food tastes awesome and price is reasonable too.

My first Unilocal review, it ended up being phở! Unfortunately I can only give the golden turtle one star. I think this is fair because the service just cannot compete with other phở resteraunt a in Toronto. Customer service is very important to me, especially in the food industry!
The food that my group had ordered included deep fried viet sausage. Having tried this plate before at other places I knew it was a delicious appetizer. The plate delivered however was extra crispy (which is great) along with an uncooked sausage (the bad). Our entrée was chicken and beef phở. The presentation looked great from a far. Huge bowls making it look as if the portions were a fair size. Upon receiving our phở we noticed that the broth took up more room than the noodles and meat.
My overall experience at The golden Turtle can only allow me to give a 1 star.

Pros: Price, Location, Phở broth
Cons: Customer service, fatty meat dishes, raunchy fish sauce compared to other viet restos, no debit
The employees HATED there job.
They don’t organize properly
The employees never smile
They don’t acknowledge you
They make so much noise when they clean up tables around you

I am very pleased to have found this restaurant which is several cuts above other phở joints I have eaten in in the past thirty years.
It starts with brilliant phở broth: here is a very complex, low salt highly complex broth. It reminds me of the broth used by the sadly gone White Lotus on Lansdowne that was my flagship spot for excellence until it closed about three years ago.
Anyway hooray for excellent golden turtle broth. I had the soup last time which brought me back today.
I tend to evaluate using two or three standard dishes and today it was vermicelli with grilled pork, grilled shrimp and spring rolls. Verdict: massive shrimp lightly grilled, lots of tender pork and as in earlier visits very plump non– greasy spring rolls which I dipped in Hoisen sauce as an experiment.
My bowl of Bun had lots of mint and bean sprouts, and the accompanying sauce was not too vinegary all well balanced.
Overall extremely satisfying and served up with flair and professional skill in a very busy lunch hour.
So I will go again though it puzzles me to see some negative reviewers dissing this place for another phở joint nearby. Guys, stay out of the commercial rivalry and avoid negativity! Life’s too short.

How this place passes off as the number #1 Phở in Toronto is beyond me. Like c’mon BlogTO, get your act together! Anyone in the know will tell you that this place is way overrated, especially with a superior option a block south of here.
I’ve simply stopped going, but had no choice that night due to the lines at the other unnamed establishment. Furthermore, phở addiction is REAL, and I need to get my fix pronto!
Anyway, a real good sign of any ethnic restaurant is it’s clientele. Although not always a good leading indicator (I’ve been surprised before), I was literally the only Vietnamese person — aside from the employees in the restaurant. They clearly didn’t know this either, because they were talking smack about some of the guests in their native language quite openly. I found this extremely unprofessional! Upon ordering for the table (speaking Vietnamese), the waitress literally froze and clearly embarrassed knowing I could understand everything they were saying. What a joke…
Alright, so food-​wise, the phở isn’t terrible, but the portions are very small. Their broth is also on the lighter side, with less cinnamon and star anise pronounced in the dish. A very average home cook can concoct this, no joke. The plate of fresh herbs was also «limp», for lack of a better term — which didn’t make it any better. Another dish we tried was the Mì qung — you dont typically see this often. It was above average, but the noodles were under-​cooked. I could go on about the appetizers, but my fingers hurt from the flowing negativity.
Eat if you must, but there are definitely better options close by.

I came here with a friend for dinner after hearing how good it was. We ordered the Vietnamese spring rolls to share and phở.
To be honest I was shocked at how this place was known for being one of the best in Toronto for phở. The fish sauce for the spring rolls was watered down. My phở had very little pieces of beef. The broth was pretty good but overall the phở was mediocre.
The restaurant is cash only.

Came here last weekend expecting the same service as the first time but the consistency was definitely not here. It was a pretty busy afternoon but we got seated right away. First off, when our bowl of phở came the lady was all confused about which orders were ours and insisted that I ordered #2 when I actually ordered #8. She kept pushing my hand away. didnt like that disservice there. When I took the first sip of my broth, it was warm not piping hot like it should be and it tasted oilier than the first time. I also didnt like the fact that even though I ordered just rare beef I got some pieces with fat on it. Not to mention my friend found a fly or bug of some sort in her soup. The fresh shrimp rolls that we ordered also lacked flavour and had browned lettuce. The quality level has definitely gone down a notch. I don’t know if I can say that this place has the best phở noodle soup anymore nor would I come back here again.

Can’t say that this is the best Phở place in town but they drum up a mean broth. I always order the large bowl with beef brisket, tripe and tendon. There really isn’t much of the last two but there was some decent slices of brisket. One of my friends found a fruit fly in hers. Talk about the wrong type of extra protein. Had they added more meat instead I would have been pleased. The fresh roll lettuce never tastes clean and fresh like im used too so these guys need to go back to the same game they played back when they first opened.

Today I went back to golden turtle with High expectations… however it was just «meh» and not as good as I remembered. Patrons be warned this place is CASH ONLY or you can use the ATM and pay the bank fees if you wish. They have an ATM on site.
The Phở broth was decent but not as home made tasting as before… I could not taste the Love in their phở today as maybe they have gotten too big and perhaps stopped caring as much. The service was undesireable and well… like most Asian Places is lacking to say the least.
I used to think this was one of the best Phở Spots but I can now conclude that Phở dau Bo on Weston trumps Golden turtle in comparison.

While I can’t consider myself a phở connoisseur, I have been to Golden Turtle several times with friends and have never been disappointed.
The staff are friendly, service is quick and prices are very hard to beat, especially considering its famous reputation. My order has rarely deviated from the Beef Phở and I have yet to be disappointed — rich soup broth is met with ginger, herbs and delicious beef. With the added chili and hoisin sauce it’s hardly low-​sodium, but thankfully water refills come regularly.
Definitely worth the visit if you’re looking for some great Vietnamese or you find yourself on the west end of Toronto!

Time to review Golden Turtle. I used to visit this place more often years ago, but I’ve notice decline in quality over the years. Not sure if it’s due to change of ownership or what. As far as phở goes, I’d definitely prefer their neighbour Tien Thanh, and the impression didn’t change during my recent visit. Phở here is really basic and average, and they don’t use banh phở like my favour place does. The broth is basic and average, and I find the meat tastes kinda off for me. They also seem to skimp on the complementary bean sprout they gave out. The items they used to do really well are phở Sate and spring roll, but the taste has been underwhelming the last couple of times I ordered them. Overall I’d say the only area I’ll choose this over Tien Thanh is they offer more variety of Vietnamese dishes than Tien Thanh.
Service is efficient but not friendly. Overall 2.5÷5

Lokal ist klein, aber fein. Original vietnamesisches essen. Sehr authentisch, alles frisch. Kleiner Nachteil: der ist immer sehr überfüllt! Also Wartezeit mit einrechnen, wenn man schon was leckeres essen möchte. Auch darauf achten welche Größe man nehmen möchte. Für normale Leute reicht L aus. Warum L? Weil die Schüsseln recht groß ausfallen. Wer sich nicht sicher ist, dann lieber mit S anfangen.
Und das in Toronto, Ontario Kanada.

Only tried the phở here. Ordered No. 10 with the tendon and tripe and beef slices.
Broth was thicker than most phở places I’ve been to in Toronto, but i found it to be too much. The tendon and tripe tasted a bit off to me, although the quantity was definitely there! Some other places will skimp on the ingredients, but not this place.
Anyways, with all the phở options in the City, I probably wouldn’t come back here based on this experience. This is solely based on taste, as the service was nice and friendly.

This rating is based on their phở. I haven’t tried other dishes and I don’t think I would after this experience. There are so many better phở places downtown, Markham or Scarborough.
The soup is very important in phở. Whenever I get a bowl. The first thing I do is have a spoonful of the bowl. Before even putting anything inside it. One taste of the soup and the taste of MSG is just an explosion in your mouth. The herb and meat aromas of traditional phở is lost. The sweetness? That’s the msg. The thirstiness you have after? That’s the MSG. It seemingly taste delicious because of the chicken powder and msg put inside it. It does has subtle hints of meat. Does not really taste authentic. Even the meat was disappointing. Yeah there was meat inside it, but it tasted thrown together. It appears like a good bowl of hearty phở. But the soup is so important. So I’m kind of disappointed.
Service. Its alright. Like any other Asian restaurant. The younger servers seem to try a bit more, the other ones don’t bother to serve you and just throw things onto the table.

Hopped off the plane and went to meet friends at the Golden Turtle for Phở.
Always #1 Large — rare beef. my comfort food. fresh basil, sprouts and lime squeezed freely. always add a bit of hot sauce, sometimes (like today) a bit of hoisin.
is it the best phở in the world?
NO
is the staff ever friendly? do they ever smile?
NO
but i like it here. decent phở. always fresh tasting (the place is generally busy)
still NO credit cards or debit cards.
it’s part of my toronto and always will be.
had the spring rolls. a bit too greasy. not really flavourful and the dipping sauce is a bit bland.
but will i be back?
YES
don’t you have places that feel like HOME?

We eat a lot of phở. It’s basically our go to for everything. Don’t know how it happened, but that comforting soup noodle, with the intense beefy flavour is something that I just can’t enough of sometimes. For me, it’s actually all about the texture of the rice noodle and complexity in flavour of the broth. I don’t even have to have the protein that is ubiquitous with the dish.
In this context, Golden Turtle has hit all the standard notes for phở. It doesn’t stand out, though it does rank in the top half for me.
The deep fried spring roll was very well done as well. A bit too oily, but I guess that’s where a lot of the deliciousness came from.
The patio — rare for a phở place though not out of the ordinary for this neighbourhood — was packed. The service was quick. All in all, for a cheaper for fix in this neighbourhood, I would come again.

I was honestly very disappointed with this place. I’m a huge fan of Vietnamese food but was thoroughly unimpressed with the beef and chicken phở. The broth lacked volume and flavour and the meat was incredibly rubbery. There was not nearly enough lime on hand to squeeze into the massive serving, and the cilantro didn’t seem to add anything to the dish.
The value for size was pretty good; $ 8.50 for a very large serving. The place is packed and they rush you out immediately after finishing your food. They also only accept cash which can be a huge hassle. I honestly don’t see where they get the accolades from. Perhaps I would’ve preferred dry dishes, but I probably won’t be returning to find out.

Went here for some phở with one of my best buddies!
He has been coming here for decades!
I had phở with chicken — I got the smallest size and it was still too much for me — but my goodness, it was excellent!

Food: ⁹⁄₁₀
Atmosphere: 7.5÷10
Service: 7.5÷10
Overall experience: ⁸⁄₁₀
If you’re looking for good phở in the city of Toronto, you’ve come to the right place.
Though atmosphere and service get lower than average ratings, let’s be serious. We don’t go to Asian restaurants for those things. We go for the food and the food here is great. (Side note though: the service is fine and the atmosphere is cleaner than you would find in Chinatown. Bonus points!)
The phở here is really good. The broth comes out very hot. They don’t over or undercook the «raw» beef that they put in it. Good amount of tripe and beef balls.
I’ve also had the deep fried spring rolls — really really great.
I’ve also heard… psst. it’s Susur Lee’s favourite phở place.
The bottom line: fantastic Vietnamese staples in your usual Asian setting.