How the hell am I going to make it all the way out to Bellaire when I'm drunk as hell with a full bladder? Ask you friends that, my good man.
Go eat at Hollywood then. Not that far from Mai's if you're looking for Vietnamese food in that area late at night.
Hopefully they have insurance. Maybe they'll move to New Asiatown and re-join the rest of the 50K Vietnamese community of Houston.
There's another Vietnamese restaurant not too far from there. I don't remember the street name but it's a few streets away.
There's a couple but you're probably referring to Pho Saigon. Mai's food really wasn't that good but a classic drunk/latenight spot. Definitely some good memories there.
I think that might be it. It's always empty, I wonder if it's still open. We all had our memories from Mai's. I didn't see the video, internet = slow. What was the cause of the fire?
My family is sad about this. It was one of their regular spots. I was even supposed to take my mom to Mai's for dinner tonight (gag). I didn't like the food, but the service was always really great and the homemade lemonade was the bomb. Completely unrelated, but I was at Yao last night and saw Mike James b****ing about waiting 15 minutes for drinks. lol
So I talked to my pops, who has been in Htown since '69 (one of the first Vietnamese here to stay no joke), and I told him about Mai's. He said there were Vietnamese restaurants along Westheimer in the mid 1970's that have long since closed.
There is this one waiter there that annoys the **** out of me. Other then that. I liked that place. Pretty sad. On weekends in April, I eat there before I go to Rockets game. Why April? Cause that's Playoff time.
Mai's is like Tan Tan, meh to terrible food but people love it because it's the only asian place open after getting drunk all night.
A little off topic, but at least there's still that one in Bell Park and Bellaire where you can order the super sized bowl for like $8. I haven't been there in years but it's probably still there. But you have to travel all the way to Bellaire. There's also one by HK1 that I used to frequent when I used to live off of Westpark. $5-6 and you get a pretty decent amount. Although you still get hungry again one hour later.. no matter which Pho restaurant you go to.
also off topic, but can anybody confirm that Pho Binh on beechnut is good? allison cook has a great writeup on it in her blog, and i wanted some confirmation. thanks. RIP Mai's
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Sucks, eaten there for years and years. General tso's tofu was the best i've ever had. Hopefully they recover and open back up
Love this restaurant. Sorry to read this news, but it sounds like she was a remarkable person: http://www.chron.com/entertainment/...Restaurant-Houston-founder-death-11739553.php The cofounder of popular Vietnamese eatery Mai's Restaurant in Houston has died. Phin Nguyen, who opened Mai's Restaurant in 1978 with her husband Phac, was 88, her granddaughter and general manager Anna Pham told Chron.com. Nguyen suffered a stroke last year and was wheelchair bound, but that didn't stop her from being a presence at the restaurant, Pham said. "She lived a really good life," Pham said. "When she declared she was going to retire, she really never retired." Nguyen and her husband started the restaurant after immigrating from Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in the 1970s. The restaurant caught fire in 2010 and Nguyen played a big part in rebuilding it. Today, it is run by Pham's mother, also named Mai. The restaurant will be closed from Aug. 10 though Aug. 12 and reopen on Aug. 14.
