by Kalina I. on I've never given a really bad review to any restaurant before, but I feel this place deserves it. I ordered a very basic item, the deluxe pho soup that contains a variety of cuts of meat, tripe, and meatballs. I've ordered this from many of the area pho restaurants and always enjoyed my noodle bowl experiences... until now. This pho soup HAS NO SOUL!!! By that, I mean the soup is really, really bland. It's basically chicken stock with no beef flavor. Usually, each restaurant flavors the soup with its own blend of spices. This one seemed to forgot to do that. The meat they use is good, don't get me wrong. The eye round steak is a little too overcooked for my liking, but the fatty meats are all very tender and quite edible. The meatballs (three halves) tasted of mostly blenderized eye round. The tripe was scant as it should be. There were onions aplenty in the soup. I like that. One place across the street charges $1 for onions. Other pho places just include onions in their soup. The accompaniment plate had scarce amounts of lime, peppers, basil leaves, but that's forgivable. What isn't forgivable is the soup... and the noodles... the noodles were the worst pho soup noodles I've ever tasted! Okay,why does every other pho place use rice noodles that are long and chewy and Le Viet uses this cheap kind of flat rice noodle that isn't chewy? I once had some instant vietnamese noodles that had this same kind of cheap flat rice noodle in it! I give the place big kudos for decor. Lovely bamboo trees decorate the doorways. A sleek, modern black interior sets the perfect mood for a date with a lovely Asian girl. It certainly caters to an American crowd that will pay for decor over taste. If you want better pho, go across the street to Pho Hoa, Nam Phuong, or down the street to Nam Son or down the road to Pho Saigon. Even Pho 75, the "Burger King" of pho restaurants, is much better and so is Viet Cong Cafe.
by Isidro Enns on I would like to leave zero stars, but that's not possible. I'm not quite sure how this place is actually in business given their customer relations skills. A group of my friends and I, about 10 girls, had selected 1 Oak for our good friend's bachelorette party. Adam, the contact from the website, was so helpful in making our bottle service reservation and assured us the night would go smoothly. We even called 3 times to confirm in the weeks before the event. When we arrived at about 11 pm, the doorman fully knew we were coming and greeted us with, "Oh yeah, the bachelorette party!" But he let us know the club would be open in about 20 min, so we went to a bar around the corner for a drink. When we returned about 40 min later, the host had arrived and was now working the door. I'm still trying to figure out what kind of tangible skills this person brought to the job (aside from looking one step above homeless, which is cool now?). He proceeded to pretend he had no idea who Adam was (check out the website, he's listed as a contact) and attempted to form a moderately coherent sentence explaining there was some sort of birthday party so we could not come in. This was extremely confusing, since making a RESERVATION usually means that you reserve your space. My friends and I chose this venue because our friend is only having one bachelorette party and wanted to send her off in style. The story from the host (whose name was Ben/Bin?) was absolutely ridiculous. Great job turning away 10 attractive, 25-year-old girls willing and ready to pay for bottle service. I'm sure your I-banker clientele has dwindled, so not sure what demographic you're going for now (middle-aged? ugly?). This was not just a group trying to get in to be caught up in the "scene," it was a special occasion people flew in from out of town for. So, please, 1 Oak, don't waste people's time. Honor reservations or don't make and confirm them, and maybe consider hiring people that don't show up to work high. I'll be super excited to check out the venue that replaces you when you go out of business in a few months.
by Mohammad Angleton on If you posted anything less than 4 stars you obviously don't know crap about food. This is about as good as it gets. Me and friend ordered about 6 different things, and everything was spectacular. Tuna Pizza- Seriously? It had jalapeno on it with the tuna and some other stuff. Thats all i need to say, i won't ever forget about it. 10 Hour Pork Kakuni- So tender and perfectly seasoned Surf and Turf- I posted a picture, just looking at it you will know how good it was. Pork Ice Cream- Gross? I don't think so. It was bad ass.
