It actually pains me to write a bad review for this place because it came so highly recommended by two of my favorite and most trusted food blogs: Eater.com and theinfatuation.com. They both raved about how much they loved this place and how great the pho is. As someone who has been constantly in search of the best pho, I jumped at the opportunity to check this place out. I mean how can both of my favorite sites be wrong about a place?
Uh - so apparently they can. I can't say how some of the other food tastes but the pho itself was no winner in my book and I've had plenty of other better experiences in Chinatown (i.e. Pho Grand). Aarti and I met up here on a Thursday night and I did appreciate that they let me actually sit at a table while waiting for her. I immediately went for the Sao Mai house pho ($9.50) which came with brisket, beef eye round and beef balls and Aarti got the vegetarian version ($8.50) and we split the vegetarian summer roll ($5.50). The summer roll came out first and the main reason we ordered it was because it came with peanut sauce. But this peanut sauce was very thin and seemed to have more soy sauce than peanut flavoring. The roll itself was basic and totally fine - stuffed with tofu instead of shrimp or pork - but for me it's always the sauce that makes the roll and this one just didn't hit the mark.
The pho came out quickly and it looked pretty promising. I will give credit in that there was lots of meat in it and the noodles were nice and soft. But what MAKES an entire pho dish is the broth and this one was just severely lacking. It tasted bland and it was just missing that punch of seasoning and meat bones flavor that makes pho so wonderful. When I go to Pho 75 at home, I not only polish off the entire bowl of noodles and meat, but I slurp up every ounce of broth I can because it's just that good. Here - I actually left behind a few pieces of meat and drank none of the broth. You know you have a sad pho when that happens. Apparently, Aarti had the opposite experience where she said she enjoyed the broth but didn't really care for the noodles or vegetables.
Another bummer was my Vietnamese Ice Coffee ($3). I like it when it's served to me in the drip form and into a cup of sweetened condensed milk and then I stir it up and pour it into a cup of ice. This was pre-made already and just didn't have that same feel to it and was a bit over sweet to me.
All in all, I was really disappointed by my experience here. I'm usually very in sync and in agreement with my other fellow food bloggers, but this one left my head scratching. Not sure if we just had two totally different experiences or they just don't know Vietnamese food very well, but the only good thing was the bill: Total cost with tax and tip: $17/pp
Photo Credit: Yelp
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