Secret Phở - Gà Nướng Lu - Clay Vase Baked Chicken

Not bad, but not good enough

Very good clay baked chicken, and the dipping sauces are great too.

I can't stop coming here. #19 (Chicken breast pho) is delicious. Their BBQ chicken seems to be ordered a lot feom the people around me. I will be bringing a friend tomorrow to try it. Everyone ai have brought loves it. Great presentation, high quality pho, friendly staff and the ambience is pretty chill! Try it!

The secret pho.... I mean it is secretive based on location cause no one was in the restaurant, but I think they could've used the word "secret" to their benefit by dimming down the lights. It almost felt like we were on stage eating. Decor was different from a typical pho restaurant and nice.

We walked into the restaurant for a specific item even though it was a pho restaurant: the Clay pot chicken (Ga nuong lu). It was well worth the price because the chicken was that delicious. Crispy skin with moist tender meat... However the rice was too dry for my taste. It was intentionally cooked that way so it would have a more chewy texture. Paired along with the chicken were three dipping sauces, salt & pepper w line, spicy creamy cilantro, and soy sauce.

Service was spectacular but there were only two tables including us. They were extremely attentive could almost read our minds on what we wanted. Unfortunately they ran out of the passion fruit drink ☹️. Would have loved to tried that.

Parking: came at night on a weekday with plenty of parking space. Most stores in the plaza were closed by 8 pm anyways so I don't ever see that as a problem.

Service: exceptionally well in a very clean, small cute restaurant. Seems like it's family owned. There were only 1-2 tables of customers during the time we were there at 8-8:45 pm. Servers were very attentive to our needs, refilled our hot tea, got us extra utensils and plates without us ever having to ask. I appreciated the fact that they don't clutter table space with utensils, napkins, and sauces, but would bring them out based on how many people were seated at the table and the type of dish ordered (for ex - I noticed they brought out hoisin sauce and siracha for a customer who ordered pho).

Food: we ordered clay pot baked chicken with lemongrass and butter (Ga nuong lu xa bo), garlic bok choy, and fried rice with chicken sate. We called ahead to place our orders for the chicken (I'd rec you doing this) and let them know the time we would be there. They give sauces (3 total - cilantro green sauce w/e it is, salt pepper lime, and some mixed soy sauce) to go with the food. This is our 2nd time having this and it's good enough for my parents to be willing to drive 45 min for dinner. It is similar to rotisserie chicken, but WAY better because of its taste and quality (smoky, tender moist meat with a slight crunch when you bite into the skin. The chicken is pricey but worth it; everything is okay and I would order other dishes to balance out the protein if I dined there. I think the rice (for fried rice or even white rice alone) is intentionally cooked to be slightly on the drier side, but I prefer softer rice. If I'm doing to go, I'd probably just do the chicken.