Green Papaya

Prompt service, amazing chicken phở, and decent veggie sushi roll. Will def come back again.

Ordered the vegan «chicken» curry and it was delicious!!! Ate way more than I intended to but well worth it! :) Good atmosphere, fun lighting.
This is downtown San Francisco, people, move to Arkansas if you want things on the cheap. I can’t imagine what they are paying in rent so no problem paying a bit more. Perfectly priced in comparison with other restaurants in the area. I’ll be back!

I love this place, been coming here for 10 years. Best beef phò in the area. And the staff is generous with their service as well as the owner, Tai is his name, is so nice that he’s even let me eat on an IOU when my card wasn’t working. He’s very nice, treats me like a friend.

Quite possibly the best phở I’ve had. I live on Seattle where hipsters fancy themselves as foodies but really what they get from international cuisines up there is watered down versions of food made to be palatable to everyone.
We are down here on a band trip and decided to stop in without reading reviews or anything.
I got the phở tai, and the meat was amazingly tender! I’m very used to chewy meats in phở.
The ambience is nice. Lighting was nice and it’s clean.
The only reason it’s not getting 5 stars is its expensive for phở. I imagine it’s because of the location but still.

This is the restaurant’s response:
thank you for your comment. from now on we will not give any extra napkins to customers
unless they ask, and hope they appreciate a restaurant that use paper mat for utensil
I’ve read other responses by this woman Annie. She makes the restaurant looks worse and worse with her rude, offensive, bullying comments.

My selection was based on the fact that I was hungry and I was walking by. I ordered the Crazy roll — very tasty. They didn’t make me beg for my check, which I love and the service was simple and fast.

Summary: Expensive and extremely rude
This is that one restaurant that prompts the urge in me to create an account to finally start my Unilocal reviews. I’ve walked pass this places many years but finally a friend wanted to come here. The server we had looked like the owner, was extremely rude. Price in the menu is higher than what they have on the flyer, which we got from a guy on the street. When I questioned which price that he would be charged us, he showed an annoyed face and rudely said the flyer was wrong and if you want to eat here you pay the price on the menu, then walked away without further assistance. Then, that’s all the service we got. The place is very crowded and loud. The dining space you will get is super tiny. Don’t expect being too cozy. And at the end, the 18% tip is added AUTOMATICALLY on the receipt even though there were only 3 of us. This place is ridiculous. There’s no way you need to pay that high a price for Vietnamese food for the creepy service. Go somewhere else.

Very authentic! Phở was incredible. Great blend of spice and flavor. The service was super friendly. The restaurant is in a very central location. Close to bart and parking.

Location, location, location. Everything here is double the price of what you’d normally pay for Vietnamese food. $ 14 for a bowl of their version of chicken phở soup? I get this all day for $ 7!
To make matters worse the noodles were rice flat noodles, wth?! With broccoli, the soup was just off and not the norm or traditional phở soup. It’s conveniently located across the View and the movies and we decided to try this place since we were craving phở.
Not authentic Vietnamese food.

Hats off to the Green Papaya for quickly serving thousands (?) ok maybe dozens of conference attendees near the Moscone Center. But echoing other reviewers, the prices here are quite expensive. In fact, quoting a friend of mine, «Phở should not exceed $ 10 in price». But I digress.
I have been here several times in the last few years and had fairly decent food and service. But today, my dish was not great. A «spicy» Phở basically seemed to have more spice and oil in the phở broth, which hid the traditional Phở spices that are so beloved. Also, the round noodles were quite hard to eat with chopsticks, which is probably my fault, but regardless it is a thing that happened. The proprietor gave me a bib over which to cover my tie, which was helpful.
I recommend that you get the fresh spring rolls, and order a Phở. If you are in the Moscone Center, it is definitely worth patronizing this place.

Very very expensive compared to the other Asian food places around. You’ll save yourself a ton of money and have more choices if you go to the food court in the Mall that’s across. The veg chicken curry we ordered was filled with Turmeric, so much that I still am not able to get the taste out of my mouth.
They also added a 15% gratuity for the three of us despite the menu saying they add it only for a group of 4. I got that corrected.

Decent Vietnamese food near Moscone center which was convenient. They have a great variety of fruit smoothies. The food is not very authentic though.

Phở No Bueno (just no Bueno) Garlic noodles tasted like spaghetti with garlic powder… Skip this place!

Sigh. A chance to eat papaya salad in between presentations. Sadly it felt more like I was eating papaya dipped in saccharine or palm sugar. Is this an attempt at Americanization? «Yeah yeah just dump some sugar on whatever you’re cooking and they’ll eat it up.» I’m guilty of eating it. But it’s because I didn’t want my $ 12 to go out with the trash. And I was really, really hungry. Famished. On the verge of eating at Denny’s. Trust me there’s one across the street. I was cranky and hungry-​angry (hangry). In addition to the sugary papaya confection I ordered spring rolls. How can you go wrong with spring rolls? By making them too far in advance. It felt like I was chewing on an old gym shoe garnished with shrimp. Cruel fate how dare you mock me like this?! Total bill was about $ 25. And that’s what we call getting burned at a tourist trap folks. One star. We’re outta here.

A block away from the Moscone Center, I seem to gravitate here every time I’m in the city for an event. While not the cheapest, I love their Vietnamese vermicelli and noodle dishes. At peak times they’re ridiculously busy, but the service is quick so there is high turnover and you won’t be waiting too long.
As with any pan-​Asian fusion place, you have to know what to get. I haven’t ever ordered the phở or the sushi, but peeking at other orders (and surveying reviews on Unilocal!) I think other, more specialized places would do those dishes better.
Thankfully for me, I’m a big fan of their Vietnamese noodle/​rice plates. For example, their garlic noodle with lemongrass chicken dish is a tasty option with tender grilled chicken and flavorful thick noodles. Anything with Vietnamese spring rolls (called «Imperial rolls» here) is also a good bet in my books, as they do them with the crinkly skin and flavorful insides that perfectly complement that sweet/​sour fish sauce. It’s also a good place for vegetarians, as there are a good number of dishes without meat that are just as flavorful as the ones with meat.
If you stick to the Vietnamese rice/​noodle plates I’ve mentioned, then the place is not as pricey as other reviews indicate. $ 14 for phở? Yeah, that’s a lot. But $ 10 – 12 for a rice plate with meat, veggies, and an imperial roll or two? That’s not too bad.
Overall, it seems you’ve got to be selective at Green Papaya. If you are, you can have a great experience; otherwise, as evidenced by the other reviews, you might end up paying a bit too much for food that could be better elsewhere. But you’re here on Unilocal to find out what to order and make the most out of it, so that’s not going to happen to you, right? ;)

Expensive compared to other Thai places nearby. Food is so-​so, definitely not worthy
We ordered phở and garlic noodle, after tasting both, it is too much worse than other similar Thai places. Service is also under average, maybe it was at noon and only a few people were having lunch (not a rush lunch hour).
Overall, won’t recommend this place.

Not a fan of the food here or at least my dish. Vietnamese people run the spot but it is so Americanized that it lacks the authenticity on everything. They serve Japanese food with Vietnamese food… Which doesn’t happen often and takes away from the Vietnamese cuisine experience. I had the shaken beef and was very disappointed in the tasteless garlic noodles — texture was not good as well as the bland taste. Won’t be ordering that again if I come and I won’t come unless my boss decides to for another team lunch.

Average Vietnamese food at tourist prices. Was craving phở after a long hard day of shopping. Phở was about $ 15 a bowl… yikes! I opted for the spicy beef noodle soup. It was well seasoned with real lemongrass floating in the bowl. Broth was too salty for my taste buds, so I added ice water to water down the sodium. It was good enough. If you check-​in on Unilocal,you get a free beverage, which is nice given the overall menu mark-​up. I didn’t get to try the sushi but I imagine it would be average, too. Service was very good. Parking is a b**** in this area in general.

Vietnamese cuisine + sushi restaurant located on Mission St near 4^th St, next to Mel’s Drive-​In. They are moderately-​sized and have a revolving sushi bar.
My co-​worker and I attended a business conference in San Francisco and came here for lunch. They were extremely busy, but the waitstaff tried their best to be quick and attentive. I ordered the phở ga (chicken noodle) and was pretty disappointed :(Portion was small, chicken was super tough, and noodles were flat instead of the standard, rice stick noodles. They also provided barely any toppings. Their california rolls were a bit better, but still small & sad…
I’d go elsewhere as you have so many other options nearby.
***NOTE: If you do decide to check them out, make sure you check-​in to get 1 free soda/​tea! Also, we didn’t have a car with us when we went, but I’m sure parking is tough just like with any place in the city.

It’s pretty obvious this place is not authentic if it has both Vietnamese cuisine and sushi rolls under the same roof. But alas, as an extremely hungry Pride-​goer, I knew that either one of those categories would be satisfying, so I went in.
Service is a little spotty — although we were seated quickly, it took the waiter about 10 minutes to ask us for our order; when we were informed that they weren’t serving any sushi all day due to «a busy day,» the waiter left us for another 15 minutes.
The lemongrass beef with garlic noodles was actually pretty decent — the garlic noodles were nice and chewy, and the rest of the dish was quite flavorful. The eggplant with tiger prawns was also solid, but didn’t blow me away as I found it a bit bland.
There’s many, many other Vietnamese joints and sushi restaurants in the Bay Area that will provide a more authentic experience and have better food. I wouldn’t mind coming back if I had no other option, but come on. It’s SF. You always have options.