This place needs to be at least 4.5 stars . Been coming since I was 19 years old and they never fail me ! Service used to be kind of bland/borderline rude , but they hired a bunch of different people with different characters and to be honest I always leave like "I wanna tip them they are cool!" Wasn't the case always but they fixed it on A dime ! No pun intended !(: love this place , quick 20 $meal and they keep my drink fulll . Will stay loyal to santeee location for a very long time ! Just due to their fire quality .... period !

Went in for lunch with my picky kiddo. The spot is bright and clean, it wasn't crowded but there was a steady stream of diverse customers and lots of pickup and food-delivery people. While it's obviously a pho shop, I was in the mood for a lunch sandwich so I got the pork banh mi. At $10.50 for the sandwich and a side of meatball soup, the price was more than fair. I'm not a banh mi expert by any means, but I appreciate the toasted roll and they served it with the veggies on the side; I assume the veggies on the side kept them fresh/crisp until I was ready to put them on, also allowed me to choose which and how much to put on. The veggies were fresh, the jalapeños were very crisp but not overpowering. I was beyond impressed with the kids rice meal. I was expecting chicken fried rice, but it was a LARGE chicken thigh(?) with a large ball of white rice; a great deal at $9! Also, my picky eater (who's hit-or-miss on eating the chicken thighs I make) couldn't get enough of the chicken; I tried it too and I could see why, it was quite delicious! We also got a strawberry smoothie, another fair price at $5, imo. Wasn't special, but was tasty.

Very impressed with this Pho restaurant in Santee. Living on the coast of North County I'm used to $15 a bowl for the basic Pho. Small egg rolls and a very basic dip for the egg rolls as well. Very different here. Basic Pho here is $12 and the egg rolls are the largest I've ever seen. The dipping sauce is much more complexed and shows this place cares what they serve their customers. We were very well taken care of and checked on that everything was to our liking . Waters topped off without asking . I ordered their most expensive Pho bowl. $16. ( See photo". Beef rib and slices of filet mignon. Incredible.

Their pho is what gives them a 4.5/5 rating. The service is so slow and they definitely take a while but understandable because understaffed & always packed. Anyway the only thing I'm getting here from now on is the pho. Today I ordered the rice plate with grilled beef, steamed egg loaf, and my fav the fried shrimp paste. I received: OLD egg loaf literally it was so hard and tasted days old. Came on my plate cold? Took a bite and spat it out in a napkin. They give me four pieces of grilled shrimp when I ordered the fried shrimp paste- took forever to even bring it out literally 20 min so I just said cancel it. The veggies on my plate were not fresh. Saving grace was that soup on the side they gave me and the beef was actually tender compared to the last time I got it. I also got the Vietnamese coffee and you can't go wrong with that lol anyway I'm only here for pho next time I dine here. Their eggrolls are solid too. No more rice plates for me.