Cordon Bleu Vietnamese Restaurant

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1574 California (at Polk) San Francisco, CA 94109

415-673-5637

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SF Weekly
Recommended
Best Dive Restaurant
Award Winner 2006

Cuisine(s): Vietnamese

Hours: Sun 4pm-10pm, Tue-Sat 11:30am-2:30pm, Tue-Sat 5pm-10pm

Price: $
Payment Types: cash

Features: Takeout

Serving: Dinner, Lunch
Alcohol: None

Reservations: Not Accepted

Parking: Street

Description

This tiny hole-in-the-wall diner has five items on its menu: imperial rolls, "shish kebab" (thin, unskewered, grilled rib eye steak), meat sauce on steamed rice, country salad, and five-spice roasted chicken. Every dish is a winner, and the chicken, just as the menu says, is "possibly the best chicken you will ever have outside of Vietnam." Plus, the place is blindingly cheap.

2006 | Best Dive Restaurant

If there isn't room to squeeze into one of the eight seats at the Formica counter that fronts the open grill or at one of the three tiny tables tucked in the back, pick up the Cordon Bleu specialty -- delicious Vietnamese grilled chicken -- to go. It seems beside the point to talk of either décor, seemingly unchanged for decades, or atmosphere, since that isn't the point here. A number of signs make it appear that there's lots to choose from, but Cordon Bleu really only offers... More »
2003 | Best Vietnamese Hole-in-the-Wall Restaurant

The place is tiny (the Formica counter fronting the open grill seats eight, and there are just three tables tucked in the back), and the menu is, too. There are only five items on offer at Cordon Bleu: imperial rolls, aka spring rolls; shish kebab, which here does not involve any kind of a skewer but is razor-thin slices of rib-eye steak, soaked in a sugary marinade and crisped on the grill; country salad, which is largely chopped cabbage; meat sauce on rice; and chicken, rubbed with Asian... More »

Fresh Eats: Vietnamese Country Meat Sauce Still Rules at Cordon Bleu

By W. Blake Gray | Wed, August 10, 2011

Feeling poor and hungry, we dropped into Cordon Bleu in Nob Hill and got to talking with proprietor Katie Yu. Yu, from Hong Kong, has never been to Vietnam. In 1995, she bought the restaurant from its founders, who claimed to have opened San Fran... More »
The Defeat of Mickey D's, Caffeine Jitters, and Duck Eggs: This Week in Food Bloggery

By Jonathan Kauffman | Fri, July 29, 2011

Highlights from SFoodie this week:1. W. Blake Gray checks out Le Cordon Bleu, which claims to be San Francisco's first Vietnamese restaurant (opened in 1968). It's now owned by a Chinese-American woma... More »
Cordon Bleu: Vietnamese Country Meat Sauce Still Rules

By W. Blake Gray | Thu, July 28, 2011

When we're feeling very poor and very hungry, we sometimes drop in to Cordon Bleu on Nob Hill to quietly scarf down a mountain of food at the counter. On our most recent visit, we got to talking with ... More »
Austrian Sock Puppets, Elvis, and the Next Big Thing

By Chicken John | Mon, April 4, 2011

The word "ragtime" describes a kind of music. You think of gaslights and mustachioed gentlemen in red and white vertical striped shirts with garters around their biceps banging away on an out of tune... More »
May Brings the Gloriously Meaty Return of BaconCamp

By Tamara Palmer | Wed, April 21, 2010

While the chorus of people singing about how bacon has jumped the shark continues to be deafening, we wonder how many members of the choir still covet a slice or a slab. The unashamed will convene onc... More »
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Main Menu

Vegetarian Delight

$2.60

Vegetarian Roll
deep fried filled with vermicelli, tofu, carrots and taro and served with sweet and sour vinaigrette

$2.60

Fresh Spring Roll
tofu, cabbage, vermicelli, carrots and shitake mushroom wrapped in clear cellophane rice paper and served with special peanut sauce

$7.60

Noodle Salad
rice noodle in a bed of lettuce, basil, cucumber with chopped peanuts and served with two vegetarian rolls and sweet and sour vinaigrette

$7.60

Garlicky Tofu
tofu and shitake mushroom in creamy garlic bean sauce served over rice

Lunch Special
Meat Sauce On Rice

$5.25

1 Imperial Roll, Country Salad

$5.25

1 Shish Kebab, Country Salad

$5.75

1 Piece Chicken, Country Salad

A La Carte

$2.60

Imperial Roll

$2.85

Shish Kebab

$2.50

Country Salad

$4.00

Meat Sauce On Rice

$1.50

Extra Steamed Rice

Half $6.25

Five Spiced Roast Chicken

Entrees

$6.85
Extra Rice $0.75

1 Imperial Roll, 1 Shish Kebab, Country Salad, Meat Sauce On Rice

$6.85
Extra Rice $0.75

2 Imperial Rolls, Country Salad, Meat Sauce On Rice

$6.85

2 Shish Kebabs, Country Salad, Meat Sauce On Rice

$7.60
All White Meat Extra $1.00

Five Spiced Roast Chicken (1/2), Country Salad, Meat Sauce On Rice

$8.65

1 Piece Five Spiced Roast Chicken, 1 Imperial Roll, 1 Shish Kebab, Country Salad, Meat Sauce On Rice

House Specials

$8.65

Spicy Pork Chop
lean pork chops served with green onion oil infused rice and side of tomato cucumber salad

$7.60

Ma Po Tofu
minced pork with savory fresh bean curd served on rice in creamy garlicky oyster sauce

$7.60
Substitute Chicken For Shish Kebab, Add $1.00

Noodle Salad
rice vermicelli in a bed of greens served with imperial roll and shredded shish kebab. a delicious traditional vietnamese dish

$7.60

Chicken Salad
shredded 5-spiced chicken in a bed of cabbage, basil, mint, chopped peanuts and served with sweet and sour vinaigrette

Looking for another city?

Cordon Bleu Vietnamese Restaurant

1574 California (at Polk) San Francisco, CA 94109

415-673-5637

Description

2006 | Best Dive Restaurant

2003 | Best Vietnamese Hole-in-the-Wall Restaurant

By W. Blake Gray | Wed, August 10, 2011

By Jonathan Kauffman | Fri, July 29, 2011

By W. Blake Gray | Thu, July 28, 2011

By Chicken John | Mon, April 4, 2011

By Tamara Palmer | Wed, April 21, 2010