Eat
TanThanh Loi.
The charcoal chop on Nicholson. Skip the encyclopedia menu.
Location
What people get wrong
This is the broken-rice stop, not Hopkins pho. Tra Vinh at 70 is vacated. Sunday closes 5pm. Time Out printed Friday to 8pm; later cards print 7pm. Plastic stands at lunch. We last walked this on 2026-09-20. Hours move with the week. Checking the shopfront keeps the night easy.
What is Tan Thanh Loi known for?
Tan Thanh Loi is known for com tam, the charcoal-grilled pork chop on broken rice that this stretch of Nicholson uses as a lunch plate, not as a pho bowl.
You smell it before you read the number. Charcoal, lemongrass, fat hitting a grill. Siobhan Relf at Mamma Knows West, 31 March 2024, said that scent will pull you from the middle of Footscray into a line that often runs a few shops down the street. You walk toward it. Plastic crowd-control stands come out in the late morning and at noon. Gary Lee wrote that for The Westsider on 1 October 2025. That is not a branding stunt. That is how many plates this room turns when the suburb is hungry and the mall is still behind you.
You sit at a foldable steel table. You may share it. You may be asked to move so they can reconfigure for a larger sitting. A communal thermos of tea, little paper cups, soy, fish sauce, chilli oil and sriracha already live on the top. Staff shuttle between the front and the back, repeating orders, pointing at seats. Vietnamese and English both work. The glass still reads Vietnamese and Chinese takeaway. The plate in front of you is Vietnamese rice: sticky fractured grains that drink sauce, a chop with char on the edge, a cold pickle that is not salad-bar salad.
This stretch is grocers, remittance desks, a chemist at 73B, lunch rooms. Hopkins is the visitor crawl with the baguettes. Paisley is the other way. Mami Ko at 76 will not grill this chop. Tran Pharmacy will not feed you. The encyclopedia menu is how people who typed "Vietnamese Footscray" get lost. Regulars already know which plate this suburb came for.
What should you order at Tan Thanh Loi?
You should order com tam, the broken-rice plate with the grilled pork chop, and you should use the nuoc mam cham or the rice stays dry.
You sit. You point at a photo if the Vietnamese name is a wall. Time Out described the job: lemongrass-marinated pork chops and chicken marylands, grilled and sliced, crowning a mound of broken rice with pickles, shredded pork skin, meatloaf, cucumber, tomato, and a piquant bowl of nuoc mam cham that ties the plate together. Westsider ordered the lot, com tam bi cha suon nuong: grilled chop, pork-skin shreds, steamed pork meatloaf, fried egg, pickled bean shoots, a sweet-savoury fish-sauce dressing. They also poured a clear chicken soup as a rinse before the rice. The suon nuong is why the queue exists. Well-marinated, tender, char on the fat. Hungry Moustache, 17 July 2017, called that chop grilled rather than deep-fried, which is the useful fact in a city that will pan-fry a suon and still print "grilled" on a board. You can ask for the same pork in a roll. Do not make the roll the whole sitting if you walked for the plate.
The board will offer hu tieu, duck noodle soup, stir-fries, bun bo hue, banh canh cua. Time Out told you to skip the first three here. A 2017 blog liked the Hue bowl as a surprise and found the crab noodles thin. That is colour. It is not a reason to turn this door into a soup crawl. If pho is what you typed into a map, you wanted Pho Hung Vuong Saigon at 128 Hopkins or Pho Tam on Leeds. If hu tieu was the word, Tra Vinh at 70 used to be the three-door walk. That glass is Co Tham Can Tho now. Name the job before you stack bowls.
Lunch is the civic event. Evening is quieter and still a rice plate. Sunday's 5pm close is how people miss dinner. Do not plan this as a 7pm Sunday sitting. If the table wanted herbs for later, Green Valley is the grocer run this plate pairs with. Do that on the way out. Do not skip the sauce and then tell anyone the rice was dry.
Hours, payment and queues at Tan Thanh Loi
Quoted hours we keep: Monday to Saturday 9am to 7pm, Sunday 9am to 5pm. Time Out, 23 September 2019, also printed Friday 9am to 8pm. Mamma Knows West in 2024 and Localista on 20 September 2026 print Friday to 7pm with the rest of the week. Call (03) 9687 4886 if Friday night is the plan. Last checked 2026-09-20.
Late morning and noon are when the plastic stands come out. Cards are normal. Cash still moves a lunch queue. Directories print no booking. Do not sit down with a party of six at 12:10pm and expect a tasting menu. You share a steel table or you wait. That is the room doing its job.
Public holidays on this strip can kill a Sunday without a website banner. Glance at 73. If it is dark, 70 is not automatically open as a clone, and 70 is not this kitchen anyway.
How do you get to Tan Thanh Loi in Footscray?
You get to Tan Thanh Loi by walking Nicholson from the mall toward the grocer stretch until the glass at 73. It is a street room, not inside Little Saigon, not on Hopkins. Tra Vinh's old number is 70. Tran Pharmacy is 73B. Read both numerals if you wanted noodles and rice on the same walk, then remember 70 is no longer Tra Vinh.
Footscray station is the nearest train. The mall is behind you if you came from the platforms. Albert Street parking is the plaza park. Nicholson kerbside is timed and mean at lunch. At night Nicholson Mall is the block some walkers skip. This room closes 7pm on the card we keep, 5pm Sunday, so the night-walk advice is for the walk home, not for a late sitting that does not exist.
If you are smelling baguettes, you walked Hopkins. If you are standing under Phu Vinh's market-perimeter glass, you walked the other wrong way. If a friend said meet at the Vietnamese place next to the chemist, this is 73. The chemist is 73B. Do not send a maps pin to one and expect the other queue.
What do people mix up about Tan Thanh Loi?
People mix Tan Thanh Loi up with a pho shop, and with Tra Vinh at 70, which no longer holds that glass.
- 73 Nicholson Street, Footscray VIC 3011 only. Com tam is the order.
- Pho lives at Pho Hung Vuong Saigon, 128 Hopkins, and Pho Tam on Leeds. Not this chop.
- Tra Vinh at 70 is vacated. Co Tham Can Tho holds that kitchen.
- Sunday closes 5pm. Most other days 7pm. Time Out printed Friday to 8pm.
- Phone (03) 9687 4886.
Questions people ask next
- Does Tan Thanh Loi serve pho?
- Pho is not the job. Tan Thanh Loi is a com tam room: grilled pork chop on broken rice. If you walked here for a pho bowl, keep walking to Pho Hung Vuong Saigon at 128 Hopkins or Pho Tam at Shop 1, 7-9 Leeds Street.
- Is Tra Vinh next door still open?
- Not as Tra Vinh. 70 Nicholson is listed to Co Tham Can Tho. Directories still print Tra Vinh. Do not send a hu tieu craving to the chop shop at 73 and call it the same kitchen.
- What time does Tan Thanh Loi close on Sunday?
- Sunday 9am-5pm on the card we keep. Monday to Saturday 9am-7pm. Time Out printed Friday to 8pm; Mamma Knows West and Localista print Friday to 7pm. Call (03) 9687 4886. Last checked 2026-09-20.
- Can you book a table at Tan Thanh Loi?
- Directories print no booking. Lunch is a plastic-stand queue and shared steel tables. Call (03) 9687 4886 if the group is larger than the room looks. Cash still moves the line. Cards are normal.
Where we checked
More in Eat
Tra Vinh
Was the hu tieu room at 70. The glass is someone else.
70 Nicholson Street, Footscray VIC 3011
Tran Pharmacy
Nicholson chemist. Sunday clocks fight. Not Barkly.
73B Nicholson Street, Footscray VIC 3011
Mami Ko
Filipino plates on Nicholson. The banner still says open.
76 Nicholson Street, Footscray VIC 3011