Noodle City

Been coming here since I came to UCSB for school (10 years!). It's been a staple Vietnamese restaurant for me. I consider it the best pho in town. I get their pho dac biet. I also enjoy their bun dishes (vermicelli noodles w/ fish sauce), and #42 (their take on bun bo hue, which I always sub with pho noodle!) as well. Thai tea is solid, prices fair. Their other dishes are just OK (like broken rice, appetizers, and stir frys), so I try not to stray away from my go tos. I'm always satisfied and full after a large bowl of noodles. The soups are always piping hot. Very no-frills service but very quick. To-gos always packed well, and the store is always busy. You can tell they are a local favorite. They expect you to know what you want. I don't go anywhere else in SB for Vietnamese. I'll think of this place fondly when I move away.

The food is great! Service is meh satisfactory but still worth it. The owner is a sassy old lady and they use the bathroom as a closet , so you know this place is authentic, according to Ali Wong, the comedian, standards. The best pho in the Santa Barbara area.

Service ❌ Atmostphere ❌ Food 😍✅ Perfect spot to get some good pho or fried rice without going broke. It’s a chill place with good value food in Goleta. What else can you ask for? They’re actually kinda nice, this place doesn’t really need any changes other than nicer bathroom.

Food is delicious and served swiftly. Servers are kind and attentive. Spooks, chopsticks, and condiments are on the table. My drink was always full. To go orders are well packaged for easy transport.

I’ve lived in Goleta for 2 years and went to Noodle City for the first time tonight. This is hands down the best Vietnamese food I’ve had since I moved here. My partner had the pho and was also blown away, because we’ve tried pho from so many places around town and have never found one we liked much until tonight. Will definitely be returning

Wanted to grab some Pho before my flight out of SBA. Very fast and friendly service and pho was delicious! Highly recommend if you’re in the area and want some good Viet food.

This is the best restaurant we always come and enjoy Vietnamese food. The owner is so nice to welcome customers. We got treat from him today. Thanks for your food and this is the best place you need to try in town.

Delicious noodles in a hurry. This place is about one thing, and that thing is FANTASTIC noodles! I order (2) #42 Spicy Beef Rice Vermicelli Soup and (2) #35 Rice Vermicelli with BBQ Pork and Eggroll for a hearty meal and leftovers for two. This is the perfect spot for getting take out after work, or grabbing a quick bite during lunch.

Midafternoon crispy noodles with soy beef - very nice lowkey late lunch. Multiple hot sauce options at each table - a veritable cauldron of chili crunch (see photo). Sadly no nondairy option for the This iced tea. Quick service, reasonable prices, will be back.

This is hands down one of my favorite restaurants in Santa Barbara. I’ve been going here for years, since college. It’s almost like a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and def the best Vietnamese restaurant in town in my opinion, food and price wise. I’m so happy they were able to keep open. I tried to support them as much as possible during the pandemic.

Best pho in town. Large number 6 is my best choice but 53 with crispy noodles is a bomb.

Great spot for Vietnamese in Goleta. You can count on them for being quick, especially if you need to be in & out for a meal.

Tracy Dang

This is the best restaurant we always come and enjoy Vietnamese food. The owner is so nice to welcome customers. We got treat from him today. Thanks for your food and this is the best place you need to try in town.

Al B.Goldin

Delicious noodles in a hurry. This place is about one thing, and that thing is FANTASTIC noodles! I order (2) #42 Spicy Beef Rice Vermicelli Soup and (2) #35 Rice Vermicelli with BBQ Pork and Eggroll for a hearty meal and leftovers for two. This is the perfect spot for getting take out after work, or grabbing a quick bite during lunch.

Beth

Midafternoon crispy noodles with soy beef - very nice lowkey late lunch. Multiple hot sauce options at each table - a veritable cauldron of chili crunch (see photo). Sadly no nondairy option for the This iced tea. Quick service, reasonable prices, will be back.

Kim Law

This is hands down one of my favorite restaurants in Santa Barbara. I’ve been going here for years, since college. It’s almost like a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and def the best Vietnamese restaurant in town in my opinion, food and price wise. I’m so happy they were able to keep open. I tried to support them as much as possible during the pandemic.

Victor

Best pho in town. Large number 6 is my best choice but 53 with crispy noodles is a bomb.

Erika Kato

Great spot for Vietnamese in Goleta. You can count on them for being quick, especially if you need to be in & out for a meal.

The owner came out to greet us and he personally is the main cook there making most of the meals. They were very welcoming and prepared us a table right away as we were walk in customers for a party of 7!

Tasty, super quick, and hot. Their #6 pho had all the right ingredients with plenty of jalapeños, basil, lime, and bell sprouts on the side. Great for a cold or rainy day.

I walk in, say “large number 9” as I sit down. 45 seconds later, a large number 9 has appeared on my table. 5 minutes later, the check. Flawless experience.

You can’t go wrong with this pho. It’s Served up right away and taste delicious.

Vu-Bang Nguyen

The owner came out to greet us and he personally is the main cook there making most of the meals. They were very welcoming and prepared us a table right away as we were walk in customers for a party of 7!

mario flores

You can’t go wrong with this pho. It’s Served up right away and taste delicious.

Cayman Lanzone

Tasty, super quick, and hot. Their #6 pho had all the right ingredients with plenty of jalapeños, basil, lime, and bell sprouts on the side. Great for a cold or rainy day.

Came here for the Pho, broth was fire, ordered the #6 and it came out to $14.95. My only complaint is that they went a little skimp on the noodles but the flavor was on point and came with all the fixings that a traditional Pho place comes with. Service was great, always checking on me and my cup was never empty. Overall good job!

This is one of the only Vietnamese restaurants left in town now, and the prices, quality of food, and service is very fast and delicious- even if they are very busy. My only remark about the establishment is that I feel a little rushed as soon as I enter the restaurant. I understand that the staff want to keep the pace of the restaurant quick and easy, but the servers are not very welcoming- when I asked what some dishes were, the descriptions were vague. They constantly wanted to take my order as soon as I sit down and what come back every minute, when I would like to look at the menu and discuss with my partner what we would like to order. I was a waiter myself for a couple years, so welcoming someone to the establishment and allowing a bit more time to look at the menu is key if you would like your customers to keep coming back ;)

Great food. Very busy between diners eating in and to go orders making it noisy. Not used to eating inside with open doors. The food was great and the price was very reasonable.

Low-key, locally known American Vietnamese spot with solid pho and great prices. I'd say the service is direct, unfussy, and quick, but not rude. My kind of place!

Super tasty fat noodles. I ordered the fat noodles with beef and wasn’t disappointed. Only thing was the service that could be improved.

Hole in the wall for all your pho or broken rice needs. This spot has relatively affordable pricing and quick service. You'll get your food in around 5 minutes or so. I ordered "Pho Bo Vien" and noticed that relative to the phos I have had in the bay area, the noodles had more of a bite, the meatball was more tender, and the broth was less fragrant. Nothing stood out too much for me in terms of taste, quality, or service. It's a decent spot for pho and the prices are affordable.

We were visiting Santa Barbara and found this restaurant with good reviews. It was in old town Goleta and the inside was not fancy. It was busy during lunch on a Friday. The restaurant seemed small from the outside yet they had many tables. The menu has a variety to choose from and reasonably priced. The service was fair and fast. We definitely plan to come here again when we visit.

Vincent Tang

Hole in the wall for all your pho or broken rice needs. This spot has relatively affordable pricing and quick service. You'll get your food in around 5 minutes or so. I ordered "Pho Bo Vien" and noticed that relative to the phos I have had in the bay area, the noodles had more of a bite, the meatball was more tender, and the broth was less fragrant. Nothing stood out too much for me in terms of taste, quality, or service. It's a decent spot for pho and the prices are affordable.

Catherine Hunt

We were visiting Santa Barbara and found this restaurant with good reviews. It was in old town Goleta and the inside was not fancy. It was busy during lunch on a Friday. The restaurant seemed small from the outside yet they had many tables. The menu has a variety to choose from and reasonably priced. The service was fair and fast. We definitely plan to come here again when we visit.

Crystal Arce

Quick service, good prices and the pho is not the best, yet the best you can find in SB 🤷🏻‍♀️. Server will practically only take your order and check in on you once, which is the usual at pho places. I do recommend to dine in instead of delivery or take out!

Kenny

Great food. Very busy between diners eating in and to go orders making it noisy. Not used to eating inside with open doors. The food was great and the price was very reasonable.

Food came out 1 -2 minutes after ordering. Too quick, resulting in soup was not hot at all. Food itself was not bad for the price. Service is weird but ok. Cheap pho place you can get a quick meal.. Don’t expect anything beyond…

Disappointed with their bún bò Huế. Instead of using the correct soup, they used phở broth.

they collect plates so fast…

Not impressed overall. Person taking our order on the phone was impatient and a bit rude. Ordered garden roll, Thai tea, and big thick rice noodle with shrimp. Sauce with the rolls had too much soy sauce and felt weird for a roll dipping sauce as well as the roll wrapper being a bit dry. Thai tea was good. And the noodle soup had noodle flavor but the noodles themselves were hard and dry.

Not baby/toddler friendly and poor service by a rude waitress. We arrived at a quiet time with very few patrons. I am over-the-top polite with servers, so when I asked if we could order appetizers while we figured out our main orders, I was surprised that the waitress snapped "wait a minute". This was the start of poor service by her. My group had 2 toddlers, and the restaurant had no high chairs (that's okay, they aren't required to have them). Being adaptable to situations like these, we brought in 2 strollers for the little ones to sit in. Again, the restaurant was mostly empty. As people started to file in, the waitress told us to move the strollers a total of 3 times to accommodate others. We abided by this, but noticed that there were 2 tables near the register that were piled with take-out items. They could have cleared these tables easily to make room for more patrons. After we had paid and tipped generously (my mistake), we were getting up to leave, when the waitress barked at us to move the strollers again. She did this, even though she saw us all standing up to leave! I have only ever left 1 other google review in my life, so I don't take this lightly. The food was okay, but the service was awful. The waitress could have been a little more professional and accommodating, but thanks to her Noodle City has lost 5 customers.

Food is average. Soup is not very hot. Service is uncomfortable, giving bills after 20 minutes eating without asking us, and cleaning up our table in front of us. Overall, it was a very rush dinning experience. I feel like I was asked for leaving all the time.

Service from staff was awesome! Pho was mid, broth was not flavorful, noodles were too soft, cuts of meat were cheap, side vegetables that came with the pho were old, and vietnamese coffee was mid too. I felt that the owner was rushing for me to finish my meal.

The food is incredible, however the customer service there is bad. We’re regulars there and always pay and tip but everytime we go the man that is at the front never talks to us, he’s very quiet and isn’t patient. We were going to order something, he came up to us ready to take the order then ignored us and walked away so we had to wait even longer to order. They always rush everyone out by bringing the bill shortly after the food gets there which rubs us the wrong way. When we are eating, the servers put utensils on the table we’re eating on to re stock it, that was completely rude as we were still eating and that could have waited until we were done. The servers also use bad language out loud when they converse with each other, when none of us want to hear your curse words while we’re trying to enjoy the food and the environment. I’ve talked to other people who eat there too, and they told me they’ve had either the same experience or similar experience. Even tho the food is good, I won’t eat there with bad customer service that spoils my food.

Iambrittany -

The food is incredible, however the customer service there is bad. We’re regulars there and always pay and tip but everytime we go the man that is at the front never talks to us, he’s very quiet and isn’t patient. We were going to order something, he came up to us ready to take the order then ignored us and walked away so we had to wait even longer to order. They always rush everyone out by bringing the bill shortly after the food gets there which rubs us the wrong way. When we are eating, the servers put utensils on the table we’re eating on to re stock it, that was completely rude as we were still eating and that could have waited until we were done. The servers also use bad language out loud when they converse with each other, when none of us want to hear your curse words while we’re trying to enjoy the food and the environment. I’ve talked to other people who eat there too, and they told me they’ve had either the same experience or similar experience. Even tho the food is good, I won’t eat there with bad customer service that spoils my food.

Shaur Herng

Service from staff was awesome! Pho was mid, broth was not flavorful, noodles were too soft, cuts of meat were cheap, side vegetables that came with the pho were old, and vietnamese coffee was mid too. I felt that the owner was rushing for me to finish my meal.

This was by far the worst pho I have ever had. food was disgusting, service was even worse. seats were right next to each other, servers are rude along with management. will never go there again. these good reviews must be paid reviews.

Food is great, service is awful. Have never been so disrespected by the people that I’M paying for MY food! The male hostess is a complete asshole and will go out of his way to be rude to you. Very unsanitary as well.

I came here for the first time ever with a friend who has dined her a few times before and another friend whose first time it was. It was my first time trying pho, so I was doing it in whatever way was easiest for me. I would lift the noodles into the spoon and eat them. I thought that was fine and normal, and honestly it's my food i'm paying for and eating -- so the way I eat it should not concern anyone. When I finished all the noodles in my dish, I drank a bit of the broth, but I did not finish it, and I did not finish the chicken in my pho. When me and my friends were done, the older man who wasn't our server and wasn't a server at all comes over and takes my dish and says "Are you done or do you want to keep playing with it?" I was shocked.. My friend said, "Playing with it? She ate it.." And he tilts the bowl for us to see and says, "Do you see how much she ate? She was playing with the noodles the whole time." Mind you I finished every noodle in that bowl because the noodles were my favorite part. I will not be returning here because the food is not mind blowingly good enough for the stank attitude I received. I'm so sorry my noodle eating made you so extremely upset, whoever you are.

This place has been riding on the fact it's the only pho around and they can dupe the students because students are always new in the area. The pho is actually really good. Not the highest quality gourmet, but for the price, very tasty. The manager is incredibly rude. The owner is incredibly nice, but you can't talk to him because the manager won't let you. We'd love for Noodle City to be a part of the community, not just skim off the continual easy prey of students. There's a community fundraiser of a great food festival coming up. It's a great opportunity for them to win new customers. Despite their poor reviews, they said no to the community. Too bad.

Terrible service. I sat for five minutes after entering, and no one came to clear the leftover food from the previous customer at my table. It was only after calling out multiple times that someone finally came, and even then, they did it reluctantly. They didn’t even bother wiping the table, leaving the greasy surface for me to clean myself. No water provided also. Absolutely awful! Despite such poor service, the prices keep going up—I’ve lost count of how many times they’ve raised them. The soup was also extremely salty. This is the most frustrating bowl of pho I’ve ever had. Don’t go.

The food is absolutely delicious and I loved going here but I got pho today to go and saw a cockroach while I was there. I then found a cockroach in my soup only after I was almost done and then got super sick. I adore the food but I'd steer clear for health and safety.

Chris Li

Terrible service. I sat for five minutes after entering, and no one came to clear the leftover food from the previous customer at my table. It was only after calling out multiple times that someone finally came, and even then, they did it reluctantly. They didn’t even bother wiping the table, leaving the greasy surface for me to clean myself. No water provided also. Absolutely awful! Despite such poor service, the prices keep going up—I’ve lost count of how many times they’ve raised them. The soup was also extremely salty. This is the most frustrating bowl of pho I’ve ever had. Don’t go.

Bethany Ribet

The food is absolutely delicious and I loved going here but I got pho today to go and saw a cockroach while I was there. I then found a cockroach in my soup only after I was almost done and then got super sick. I adore the food but I'd steer clear for health and safety.

The most sad looking pho bowl, lack of so many key ingredients. I understand it’s not supposed to be authentic due to “non Asian” populated location, but the quality is too embarrassing to be called “pho”, and the meat was like many weeks old, super hard and tasteless.

Rudest customer service I’ve ever experienced. I am traveling with my mother in law and her service animal and we were refused service because they “only allow small service dogs”. We pleaded our case about service animal laws but between the staff and the single customer we were harassed enough that we had to leave. Service animal or not, go elsewhere because this establishment it not worth your time or money.

Refused to serve us because we had our “legit” service dog with us…saying they only allow small service dogs and ignoring the fact that we explained it was illegal according to ADA laws. Well now they’ve been reported to ADA for violating the law and we will never return. Places like this are not worth the time or effort to patronize.

CL L

The most sad looking pho bowl, lack of so many key ingredients. I understand it’s not supposed to be authentic due to “non Asian” populated location, but the quality is too embarrassing to be called “pho”, and the meat was like many weeks old, super hard and tasteless.

StacyTanya Smith

Refused to serve us because we had our “legit” service dog with us…saying they only allow small service dogs and ignoring the fact that we explained it was illegal according to ADA laws. Well now they’ve been reported to ADA for violating the law and we will never return. Places like this are not worth the time or effort to patronize.

Rachel Jonesmith

Rudest customer service I’ve ever experienced. I am traveling with my mother in law and her service animal and we were refused service because they “only allow small service dogs”. We pleaded our case about service animal laws but between the staff and the single customer we were harassed enough that we had to leave. Service animal or not, go elsewhere because this establishment it not worth your time or money.