Pho Thanh Binh

Great Vietnamese food in San Clemente! This restaurant is popular with many people in South Orange County as testified by the vigorous business they do. Every visit we have made to this establishment has been enjoyable. Very clean, prompt service, reasonable prices, and, of course, high quality food are always delivered here. Very generous phở servings. Favorite dish: fried garlic calamari-​best I have had anywhere. Try this place if you want excellent Vietnamese food in South Orange County.

They are the best! The phở is amazing and made with love. The staff is super sweet, efficient, and quick.

Every time I come here I get the raw beef phở. What I love most about it is that it comes with plenty of meat! The broth is also amazing! I usually order to go and the staff is so friendly, and most of all efficient. I usually end up getting my soup within 5 to 10 minutes. This has definitely become one of my regular spots and I would recommend it to anyone looking for Vietnamese food.

My fiancé and I ate here for the first time tonight. It is a rainy windy night and phở sounded like just the perfect thing to cuddle up with a movie and a fire for dinner.
The staff were all extremely nice, helpful, and just really great all around. I feel bad because I wanted to love their phở so much. They helped us with our selections and described and explained many items on the menu that my fiancé and I were curious about. Cute place, seemed clean upon a brief look around although we didn’t eat there we ordered Togo.
We got pork egg rolls to share and both got the chicken phở, added veggies to each order. The staff were very accommodating to our requests to omit certain veggies and kindly gave us a side of peanut sauce to go with our egg rolls. I really appreciate when restaurants are generous and allow you to switch out ingredients or get a different sauce without charging you an arm and a leg to do so. My fiancé is allergic to mushrooms and they were very accommodating to that as well.
Let’s get to the food:
Pork wontons — excellent. Crispy, not too greasy, flavorful. We got the peanut sauce with it which was a good call.
Chicken Phở — all around kind of bland. It makes me so sad to say this but I really was expecting a lot of flavor and it just wasn’t there. Big let down on flavor. Also I kept getting little pieces of bone on my chicken but it was easy enough to pick off.
The ingredients all tasted pretty fresh and were cooked well. It just lacked flavor.
I will go back because their menu had some interesting items I would like to try. I feel like maybe phở just isn’t their strong suit. I’ll try the coconut curry and beef stew next time for sure. And probably get more egg rolls. Yum!

Love this local joint! Phở is delicious and has lots of variety. Staff is friendly and restaurant is clean… my favorite phở place.

My go-​to phở item is always Phở Tai (bare beef noodle soup) and this time was no different. The food came quickly, but the broth was bland, yet oily. Later on I had slight acid reflex from this meal and had after-​tastes of my meal. On a positive side note, the bean sprouts were very fresh and crunchy, just the way I like it!
Service was great and accommodating as I was part of a large group. The staff was speedy and efficient with getting our food out on time. The waiter even came by to check on us.
Ample parking, convenient location right off the freeway. Prices are slightly higher compared to other phở joints, but there probably aren’t too many phở restaurants in the area. I’m willing to give this place another chance when I’m in the area and craving phở.

A great find on our way to San Diego! I normally go to Westminster to have Phở but this place is the real deal too! I was looking for a place to eat near the Outlets at San Clemente. We just did not want to eat «mall food». Looked on Unilocal and found a gem! The pics and reviews on Unilocal sealed the deal. Thank you Unilocalers!
They have a wide variety of Vietnamese dishes with some Chinese dishes on their menu too.
We had beef stew Phở. The beef slices are tender and really flavorful. The chicken fried rice was filled with slices of very tender chicken perfectly cooked. It has a bit of smokiness to the dish which my wife and I really liked. The vegetable and tofu dish we had was equally excellent. You can tell that we are fans!
Talked to the Paul, who owns the place, at length. I could tell his passion for quality and pride in his dishes and cooking. He told us he uses fresh chicken not frozen, fresh vegetables and quality beef. Great people with great food!
Thank you Unilocalers!

First time here, and I thought overall everything was pretty good. My family and I ordered a few dishes to try, and everything came quickly (even though the place seemed fairly busy). The chow mein and chicken was outstanding, I would go back just for a plate of that! I also enjoyed the Shrimp Spring Rolls and the cream cheese wontons. The Stir Fry Chicken was good as well. Their sticky rice served wit sauce was quite tasty. I took a star off because it was a little pricey. But I was overall impressed.

I am changing my review because of my experience visiting Phở Thanh Binh last night. I originally gave 4 stars because of great phở and good service. However, I went out to eat here last night and it was like I went to a brand new place! My friend’s bowl had way too many noodles, and mine didn’t have enough. Not to mention that hers was completely loaded with cilantro to the point where she had to scoop it out. On top of that, the servers took forever to come to our table for our order and for the check. We couldn’t wave them down because they were nowhere to be seen! Go find a cheaper place in San Clemente!

Good phở, extensive menu, service could be better. If I lived in the area I would give it another try.

Awesome phở, eggrolls, and laser space battle background music. I always leave happy.

Nice Vietnamese restaurant. Very large menu to order from. Lots of parking. This used to be the «Waffle Lady» restaurant.

My boyfriend and I come here every time we are craving phở and it always hits the spot. Service is so ridiculously quick and there are many tables that there is never ever a wait when we visit.
Phở Thanh Binh has patio seating, ample booths inside as well a what looks like a decent sized banquet room for private parties. It’s hard to come by a decent phở establishment in south OC so Phở Thanh Binh is definitely a stand out in my book. Plus it’s right off the 5 freeway. So convenient.
Don’t forget to check in on Unilocal for 10% off! Love me a good deal :)

For something in south orange county this phở place does the job. I enjoyed the phở dac biet and cha gio. My brother got the com tam tom thit bo nuong which was also pretty good. The only qualm I had was that the lettuce wrap that came with the egg rolls had a little fruit fly in it. Easily picked out but not the best thing to find in your food. When I am in the area or am too lazy to drive all the way to garden grove this will satisfy.

I come here like 3x a week. I absolutely LOVE the food and all of the wonderful people working here. Very cute and yummy place.

The OXTAIL PHO has a truly delicious broth and the additions of basil, oxtail and sprouts only improve it. The meat is tender, flavorful and perfect. I’ve never had a better oxtail phở.
SPICY PORK SANDWICH — I’ve always wanted to try this but not many phở places have it; there was a creamy dressing of some sort, spicy jalapeño peppers (sliced), chopped carrots, sliced cucumber, grilled pork and herbs like cilantro; the French bread was firm but soft; I loved this sandie and look forward to «sniffing these out» more often in the future

When I do a review, and there are no pictures of full dishes of food, you know the review is going to be positive. Why? Because likely I’ve already started into the food, overwhelmed by the taste, smell, and presentation before I could remember to snap a pic. And this was certainly the case with Phở Thanh Binh.
The service was polite and timely. The waiter was very accommodating and nice but most importantly he had our food out to us quickly.
The phở was very tasty. It’s funny how sometimes the raw steak cooking in the broth leaves a bit of a game-​eeness or bloody and a little sour flavor. But with this particular PHO, this wasn’t the case. The broth was light beefy and flavorful. The meats themselves were good. I even added the meatballs which is a must.
All in all, if I find myself in San Clemente again, I will definitely be back.

One of the best Vietnamese restaurants I have been to. Food is amazing. I would definitely recommend coming here if you’re in the San Clemente or Dana Point area.

Great chicken and soup gave me a10% off for check in.. They great people.. Service is great.

+Good bowl of Phở.
+A little more expensive than most places, but that goes with the area.
+Spacious interior.