Le Regal

It's a cute little place on Center Street, where many other asian restaurants are located. My roommate wanted to give it a try, so after our finals we treated ourselves to a night out.

Service:
The server was friendly and professional. But she could of been more attentive because we were out of water on a few occasions.

Food:
The food came out relatively slow for what we ordered and it didn't seem like there was too much people who were still waiting on food.

BBQ Pork + Imperial Roll Rice Plate - The pork was dry, but the imperial was pretty tasty. It was kind of hard to eat the pork because of how dry it was, but with the fish sauce it was a little better. The rice was fine.

Overall:
I wouldn't recommend it since I really didn't enjoy my dish too much and I thought it was a little too pricey for what we got.

Yeah I don't get all the low ratings on this place either because my bf and I were SO happy with our meals here before going to see filmmaker Michael Moore speak at UC Berkeley - what a perfect location for us to grab a quick, healthy, tasty dinner before heading onto campus!

My bf had pork vermicelli and I had pho ga (chicken noodles) - these are our standard orders when we go to Vietnamese restaurants for the first time, and we loved it! They gave me lots of bean sprouts, basil and jalapenos to sprinkle over my pho and my bf chowed down and was so happy with his dish.

Nice, attentive service, lovely meal, reasonably priced and we were on our way to our Saturday evening plans - perfect!

This place serves some decent pho, though it's more expensive than it needs to be. I usually get the sliced beef & beef ball combo at any pho place, and I thought it was good here. The meat didn't taste too authentic, but the noodles were cooked well and the soup base was tasty and not too salty. Everything was a bit too oily, as were all the other dishes my friends and I have tried - we've ordered a rice plate, fried rice, and spring rolls the other times I've been here.

It's really roomy in the restaurant, and there are usually a couple of people in there, but the decor and lighting are really old-fashioned and not that welcoming. It doesn't look (and feel) too clean, and service is slow. The staff is extremely nice but they take forever to get your food out, especially if there are other customers.

I'd say go here if you're in the area and craving pho really badly, but otherwise you're not really missing out on anything.

Cary L's review cracked me up. I too just moved here from San Diego and I too thought to myself that authenticity is questionable when the place looks too nice... I too thought that the prices were $2 more per item than comparable restaurants in San Diego... and I too was eventually lured inside by the same woman popping her head out the door while we were looking at the menu boards trying to decide whether to give it a shot.

I'm glad we did. The servers were very friendly and attentive. The three dishes we ordered were spot-on (cha gio, bun thit nuong cha gio, and com chien dac biet). The cha gio (spring rolls) in particular were crispy and fresh and delicious.

After we left my friend realized that he left his jacket there so we called and the lady (probably the owner) said she chased us but we disappeared too quickly... then she waited around after closing so we could return to pick up the jacket.

Best Vietnamese food I've found in the area... and walking distance from home. Dangerous to my waistline and my wallet. But kudos to the nice owners of a solid restaurant.

Two words: SHRIMP TOAST.
(Say hello: http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/p6mJUU1ZSxaPCZgPXNJBDA?select=j7cjBLmPhJ754m0VaHFvtg)

I used to have this at Thai places when I was living in Tokyo. Such an unappealing and unattractive name for such a fine treat. I'm not a fried food fanatic, and I always tell people I detest fried food, but shrimp toast is undeniably delicious in spite of (or because of?) its deep-fried goodness. Mmm.. I actually think Le Regal's shrimp toast is better than the ones I had in Tokyo. And that's saying a lot, because I usually think Japan does food way better than the States. I would come here just for the shrimp toast. =)

Pho was a little on the greasy side, kind of unflavorful. Maybe it was an off day? I know pho broths tend to be inconsistent. "Shrimp Rolls" are your basic spring rolls. I don't see how you can mess those up. Overall, this restaurant as a whole is "A-OK." But the shrimp toast is a must-try. I shall preach the gospel of Shrimp Toast until it is known and loved everywhere!! =D

Stay away from this Godawful place. The staff is Rude. Got my order wrong. Then they Insisted I'd ordered a pork dish when I don't eat pork. Took them 30 minutes to take our order then half an hour to bring out our dishes - One by one over 15 minutes. Some in our party of 6 tried to wait for everyone to be served so their dish got cold. And when we finally did eat... The food was terrible.

Le Regal is the only place I go to for pho in Berkeley. I've been a regular customer for about two years now, since I first discovered it. I've never written a Yelp review before but I feel compelled to do so, for the first time, for this place. I always either get vegetable noodle soup with veggie broth, or seafood noodle soup with veggie broth, and I have never once been disappointed. It is always exactly what I need, and pho is one of those foods that you simply need from time to time (or as often as possible, in my case). The broth is flavorful, the veggies and seafood fresh, and the rice noodles are cooked to perfection.

The service is always friendly and welcoming. The woman who appears to run the place always remembers me and my boyfriend and predicts our orders for us.

I love the cozy and quaint ambiance and did I mention the French music? I love the French music that is often playing on the stereo.

Oh and the horse statue wishing fountain! Love that, too.

Cheers to my favorite affordable Berkeley restaurant.

I love that they had vegetarian pho...but it was pretty bland. It was missing something that I can't quite place my finger on. The service was OK. Our waitress was nice, but not very attentive (and it wasn't busy).

The decor is nice...and I love that they had fresh spring rolls because a lot of places only have rolls of the fried variety. I'll probably stop by again for the spring rolls (which were excellent) but I think I'll pass on the pho.

I really like Vietnamese food and was excited to have spotted this place while walking out of the bank today. Although my usual Viet meal is Pho, the Imperial rolls with vermicelli sounded better. I ordered to go with some flan for dessert. The vermicelli was cold! and I don't mean it-took-me-5-minutes-to-get-my-food-back-to-work-to-eat-it cold, I mean someone-threw-some-noodles-in-cardboard-and-tried-to-pass-it-off-as-an-acceptable-meal cold. The imperial rolls were so/so. The flan tasted like it had been sitting in the fridge with a lot of other stuff and it had taken on those flavors. I ended up tossing it.

Too bad. I'm pretty tired of Pho Hoa and would have loved to have found a new and improved Viet place to go in Berkeley.

I shoulda walked up the street to Top Dog, or even BongoBurger, BUT
I said to myself , Elle,here's a nice looking restaurant , it looks warm and comfy, you deserve a treat--------------- Had I been able to Yelp it, well, I would have saved $$$. I had the shrimp and "vermicelli"
Salad Bowl.

The shrimp was not just rubbery, but rubber. The vermicelli, which we used to call noodles until the Italians invaded Vietnam, was OK- but as far as the salad--- there were a few lonely leaves of cilantro.

Always look for one good thing about a bad situation, my mom used to say,

The one good thing-----at the next table were a group of paleontologists
discussing digs and bones.

Ah the joys of living in a college town!!!!!