Nha Trang, Thai Son, and Don Coqui

I might as well start this off with some solid reviews. First off, Thai Son and Nha Trang, both on Baxter street, in Chinatown.
I had jury duty on Monday and Tuesday (jury duty review to follow) and had an hour and a half to kill for lunch. Anyway, both of these are Vietnamese restaurants which specialize in a type of Vietnamese noodle soup called "Pho". Pho consists of a clear (or dark beef) vegetable or chicken broth which usually comes with a protein, some rice noodles, and some vegetables.

At Thai Son, although the restaurant was pretty crowded, I was seated immediately, and a cup of hot tea was placed in front of me. The waiter came by to ask me if I was ready to order before I had even taken off my coat, but ok, whatever. He came back in 30 seconds to see if I had finally decided. After I asked him no more than two questions, he was completely exasperated and walked off to put in my order of shrimp noodle soup. The soup came out right away, scalding hot, with a side of fresh bean sprouts, a lemon wedge, and some kind of anise-y flavored herb that didn't look as though it had been washed before making its way to the plate. The soup was pretty good, but after about three shrimp, I noticed that some of them hadn't been cleaned. Gross. That was it for me. Luckily I had eaten most of the broth and noodles, so it didn't ruin my lunch, but I wouldn't eat shrimp from there again. I should mention that the shrimp were large enough that they should really have been cleaned. The bill came to $6.80. not bad, but with unclean shrimp, I can't recommend this place. The service was quick and efficient, but not friendly at all.

The next day, I went to Nha Trang, which is right next door to Thai son. The service was a little less angry, and just as fast. My soup came out right away, along with the bean sprouts, anise, and lime this time. Everything looked a little cleaner, including the shrimp. They didn't bring any free tea, but that was an ok trade off for the cleaned shrimp. Again, the meal came out to a little over $6. I would go to this place again.