Nam Son Visited 2/8/2011 3.75 Forks

Nam Son 245 Grand St., (between Bowery & Chrystie St), New York, NY 10002

 As many of you know, I am obsessed with pho.  I could eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday for the rest of the year.  Virginia and I have gone to a bunch of pho places around the city and we have a hard time keeping track of where we have gone already.  Sometimes we walk into a "new" place and then realize that one of us or both of us have already been there.  She had first suggested Xe Lua as a new place to try, but the name sounded so familiar and lo and behold we of course have already been there!  So when she suggested Nam Son, I knew I definitely hadn't been there based on the name.  The place is tucked away on Grand Street, a bit away from the busier streets of Chinatown.  

My initial impression of the place was that it was pretty big and fairly clean but there was a slight strange smell going on which I kind of attribute it to it just being in Chinatown.  The menu is fairly extensive with over 140 items on the menu...and if I could I would have ordered 50 of them.  Instead, we ordered the summer rolls ($4), spring roll ($4.25), I got the regular tai pho ($6) and Virginia got the same with meatballs in it and a fresh lemonade ($2.25).  The summer roll (2 to an order) was nice and soft and had a decent filling although it was slightly heavy on the vermicelli noodles and of course we needed to balance the "healthy" roll with a nice  dose of deep fried spring roll (4 to an order but they were fairly small in size).  They were also really tasty and had the right combo of pork and vegetables.  The pho came out and I liked what I saw.  The meat was nice raw on top and there was a good serving of noodles.  Of course I would have loved more meat, but after downing all those rolls, it's probably better that there wasn't an overload of meat.  The serving size of the overall bowl was just right and it had nice flavor overall.  It could have stand to have a bit more cilantro and spring onion in it, but the intention of the flavor was there. 

The waitstaff was pretty friendly and the over atmosphere was very comfortable and laid back.  It was great that they took credit card because most Asian places (especially places that run on the cheap side) don't take plastic.  The total bill was $26 for two (not including tip).