Phuc Long Coffee & Tea

As excited as we typically are to check out new restaurant openings, we didn’t rush over to Vietnam’s famous Phuc Long Coffee & Tea immediately after its first U.S. location opened in Garden Grove, 53 years after its founding in central Vietnam. Early online reviews were suspiciously polarized, so we consulted a friend before stopping by. “Don’t worry about the Yelp reviews,” he said. “This is the closest to a tea shop in Vietnam as you can get around here.” That was enough to bring us in.

Nicely decorated inside with a rustic but clean old school Vietnamese aesthetic, Phuc Long sports a menu of “signature” coffee and tea drinks generally ranging from $5 to $7, as well as a small collection of snacks including banh mi sandwiches, rice paper salad, and desserts. Since opening, it has cultivated at least as many fans for its authenticity as moans for overly small portions and sweet drinks.

Everything we tried was either okay or good, though the $6 Banh Mi was the second smallest we’ve found anywhere locally – a poor value compared with THH, though recently augmented by Phuc Long’s addition of three typically finger food-like Banh Mi Que pork floss sandwiches for $9. Their Choco Mousse Cake was similarly tiny, neither bad nor otherwise remarkable.