Despite all the heat and humidity, I always crave pho even in the summer time. So when the wait at Tim Wo Han was still over an hour on a random Tuesday, Virginia and I decided to check out Madame Vo instead. It was also jammed packed but the host said it would only be a 15 minute wait, which was great. My first impression is that it's definitely not your mom and pop Vietnamese restaurant - it's catered much more to the hipster East Village crowd but the host and wait staff were all Asian so I figured it still had some authentic qualities to it.
The menu has a similar vibe to Hanoi House, which is of a highly curated greatest hits menu from a more traditional mom and pop place. You'll find your typical spring rolls, summer rolls, banh xeo, pho, bun bo hue, and bo luc lac type dishes here. Unlike my favorite pho places, there is only 1 kind here but luckily it's a pretty damn good kind. VA and I split the fried spring rolls ($12) and I obviously had to get the pho ($16) while she got the vermicelli bowl ($14).
The spring rolls came 4 to an order and were nicely fried and filled with shrimp, crab and pork. It came with the usual fixings of the lettuce wrap and fish sauce to dip into. It was a solid order, although with anything fried, it is hard to go wrong with that format but the filling was fresh and tasty. Now that I'm writing this, I realized that we got another fried spring roll dish as well and frankly that was totally unnecessary order, especially for 2 people, I would recommend just 1 appetizer or if you are going to get two, don't get two spring rolls.
The pho came out and it was a fairly large bowl but at $16 I would expect nothing less. The smell and flavor was immediately intoxicating. I could tell that it was at the very least going to be a tasty dish. The broth was excellent and it was served with all the "best of" meats for the dish - brisket, eye round, bone marrow and meatballs. For $5 extra, you could have also added short rib or $3 for oxtail but the idea of spending almost $20 for pho just didn't sit right with me. And you know what? The pho was excellent without them. I would have liked less meatballs (or no meatballs) and more eye round instead. Unlike some of the broths I've had in Chinatown, this one was not too oily and it had the right flavor combination. The noodles were soft and the right texture for the broth. I'm not sure if it was the heat or not but saldy I couldn't finish my meal - this is by no means a reflection on the quality of the pho but more on how much food there was and how freakin hot it was. While I know leftover pho isn't as good as it is when it's served fresh, I couldn't bring myself to leave it behind (and yes, I can confirm that leftover pho is not good). I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed my meal here as I was expecting to be lukewarm on it. It's pretty on par with the fancy pants pho at Hanoi House and I would say that they are both a step up from some of the bleh places in Chinatown but it still doesn't match up to my all time favorite place at home, Pho 75.
While I generally am not a huge fan of "gentrified" Asian places, I am starting to warm up to them when the food is executed well. I will always prefer hole in the wall, mom and pop places, but some of these "nicer" places are still able to deliver on the the authenticity of the food without dumbing the food down. My biggest complaint thought with places like this is the price. Paying $16 for a pho (while delicious) is completely outrageous in my book but I guess that's the price you pay to live in NYC. Total bill: $41/pp with tax, tip and drinks
Photo Credit: Yelp
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