Thang Long - Vietnamese, Petaluma

175 N McDowell Blvd, Petaluma, CA 94954
(707) 778-8851
Parking: in shopping center
Closed for lunch on Sundays

Last Visited: November 12, 2005

Food: 3 stars
Atmosphere: 3 stars
Service: 2 to 3 stars
Price: $ to $$

When you enter Thang Long, you are immediately drawn to look at the aqua blue walls which have a mural of fine detail. You might be able to get lost in the wall mural. It’s different than what you would typically expect. The water is beautiful and there’s a little row boat in the water as well as a gazebo on one of the walls. The main façade has three new large panel windows which bring in a lot of light.

Thang Long is typical in that the chopsticks, spoons, and typical pho condiments are all on the table self serve style. They have the usual offerings of pho, vermicelli, and the like. Tables are spaciously placed.

On our most recent visit, we had the following items, but most visits consist of some form of beef pho.

- Cha gao - There are three fried spring rolls per orderwith pork inside the Vietnamese rice wrapper. Served with fish sauce dipping sauce. I found the minced pork inside to be a bit dry, but it was a crispy wrapper and fried to a nice golden brown. $4.25

- Combination Beef Pho – available in many sizes. This time we tried the extra large to see how large it really was. There is definitely enough to serve two in an extra large bowl. Soup seasoned with lots of flavor – garlic salt, beef broth base etc containing the well done beef brisket, rare eye round steak, and beef balls. I would have liked more tendons and tripe. As always, it was filling, and had good flavor. The pho deserves three to four stars. Small $4.95 Large $5.95 XL $6.95

- Shrimp Fried Rice – The flavor behind the shrimp fried rice is good, and there is an abundance of small shrimp, but I found the texture to be a little on the dry side. The rice kernels are intact and separated, so the consistency was good, but a little dry for me. $5.95

- Grilled Marinated Pork served with steamed rice – Pork slices are grilled and topped with chopped peanuts and chopped green onions. All of the meat is placed on a large lettuce leaf. Chopped lettuce, carrots, cucumber slices, and daikon accompany the meat. Steamed rice is served on the side. A small bowl of fish vinaigrette (fish sauce mixture) is served on the side. I enjoyed this dish a lot – the flavors were good and the meat was very tender. $6.50

- Coconut Juice – You can start to see a pattern that I enjoy young coconut juice.The price of the juice went up by 25% since my last visit, which seemed a bit of a high increase to me. $1.95

Overall, it’s a good place to go, especially if you want Pho in the Sonoma County area. It’s not as crowded as the Pho place on Sebastopol Road in Santa Rosa, and it offers almost as good flavor (it’s almost as good, but you won’t walk out of this place as thirsty which equals less MSG). I wasn’t as pleased with the non-pho dishes, but there pho is their specialty, and with that, they do excel. Note that prices have increased by about ten percent this year.

It was a while since my last visit in late 2003. This time, I had the large size combination beef pho and was quite satisfied with the food. Service was a whole other matter. It appeared to be the dinner time of the servers because they disappeared. For fifteen minutes or more at a time, it seemed you couldn’t find anyone for anything.

The additional item tried this evening –

- Sugarcane Shrimpstick – Three pieces of fresh sugarcane are wrapped with shrimp paste and grilled. The shrimp sticks are accompanied with vermicelli noodles, lettuce leaves, cilantro, cucumber slices, and dipping sauce. The sweet flavor of the sugarcane infuses into the shrimp paste, and the shrimp was grilled nicely. The dipping sauce works well with the shrimp. One method of eating this dish is to remove the shrimp paste from the sugarcane and wrap it with vermicelli, cilantro, and cucumber in the lettuce leaves. However, the lettuce leaves we were served weren’t fresh - they were wilted and starting to discolor. The sugarcane is very fresh, and that was the redeeming factor in this dish. The shrimpsticks with the sugarcane is good, but the length of time it took to receive this dish and the lack of freshness of the accompanying vegetables were disappointing. $8.95

I stand by my earlier statement – stick to the pho and you’ll be satisfied.