Alright everybody.
I had dinner there at 6:30 on the dot with my lady friend. Place had maybe 2 or 3 people but whatever, traffic was a real mess on Main and King Edward. Walked in, guy was super friendly/outgoing and said the typical, "Heeey my friend! Come in! Your wife! I love her hair, just like Pulp Fiction and Saturday Night Fever!"
We were like, "WTF?!?" Okay. Put a smile on our face. Seated and took a look over the menu. They have some very traditional items on the menu, in fact, very intricate in terms of ingredients used, mainly Chinese ingredients especially for their spring rolls. Prices for their spring rolls were outrageous - $7.50? No thanks.
My lady friend and I ordered coffee (hot and cold) - it was $2.50, not $1.50 on the menu. I ordered the Pho Dac Biet house special (how could you not!?) while my lady friend ordered the beef and tripe noodle soup. She asked for a small but when the food came, turns out that everything is all one price. Only difference is the size of the bowl. Go figure. My bowl was bigger and cost the same as my lady friend's. The portions were the same. And as mentioned by another review, yes, the portions of noodles suck ass. It was barely a fistful and had so much soup, it's an embarrassment to pho in itself.
Here's the lowdown on the pho:
1. Broth/soup - Bland. You can taste hints of the daikon, star anise, cloves and dates. They concentrate heavily on this however, the soup has been boiled for 14+ hours (I asked.) While so, they do it south Vietnamese traditional style where they make the soup boiling it with tonnes of bones. No MSG - I can tell you that for sure.
2. Noodles were the thicker/fatter type and were fresh. I prefer this style and they're chewy.
3. Beef/meats - not bad. Standard pho meats for a house special however, it just sort of floats around. Meats were complimented with a good serving of onions which I like.
4. Condiments - bean sprouts / basil / lime and chilli. Standard. Nothing special.
5. Portions - WTF? Small or large - no difference in quantity or price. Just the bowl and the amount of soup you get. What kind of trickery is this?
Final verdict - it was just, "okay." Not good. Not bad. Just okay. If not, it sucked. No use of MSG was awesome and I applaud them for keeping the broth as real as possible but it ultimately had little to no flavour to it. The broth is the key to all pho. They failed. And wooden/disposable chopsticks? What the fuck man?
I don't recommend this place at all nor would I go back. $20 with tax and tip for 2 bowls of pho and two coffees?
I've had much better pho.
Picture of fail not worthy of a real camera:
$2.50 for coffee and it wasn't great. There's very little coffee used so it tastes pretty weak.
A bowl of fail.
Another bowl of fail.
