Alright….laugh away! I noted in a post a few months back, that Thien Thanh had closed and was to be replaced by Pho King Restaurant, a play on words that is almost too tempting to resist. For the last couple of weeks the Missus and I have mentioned Pho King Restaurant, when going over places to eat. The sentence usually started with, "why don’t we try out that(fill in the blanks) restaurant?" Egads! I wonder what pho-king will think……..
We finally got our act together and headed off to that (fill in the blanks) restaurant, and arrived on a recent weekend, to find the already too small parking lot, over-run with double parked cars. Luckily, I found a spot on the street:
As the nice Young Man guided us to our table, we noticed a few things, first the place was busier than we had ever seen Thien Thanh, second, there were many families, and older Vietnamese Men and Ladies eating, always a good sign. The restaurant had also gone through a nice face lift, with a paint job, and tasteful decorating job.
You could tell that Pho King was going for a cleaner, more classy and upscale look. Even the little dishes for the various sauces had a nice clean look.
Check out the various hot sauces….
The Missus is particularly fond of the chili oil in the upper left hand corner….
The Missus, though not a big fan of Pho, decided to just go ahead and order the the Pho Dac Biet(special – large – $5.75):
The garnishes, though not very large in quantity was sufficient, very fresh, and included Ngo Gai(saw leaf herb).
Per the Missus, the broth was very plain in flavor, nothing really stood out, and the broth was almost a milky white! All of the meat (rare beef, brisket, flank, and tripe) were tough and on the "dry" side. The exception being the tendon, which was nice and soft. The noodles were too soft and mushy.
I could only smile while I thought, "I trained Her well!"
I ordered the Hu Tieu Mi Kho(Clear Rice and Egg Noodles, with shrimp, fish balls, squid, imitation crab, BBQ Pork – large – $6.75):
Ever since I read Elmo’s post on Hu Tieu Mi, I’ve been dying to try it out. And finally, I had enough time to go through a menu and find it. This version came with a plate plate of garnishes that included bean sprouts, and most surprising of all Chinese Celery.
The melange of various meats topping this mixed noodle dish varied from the good (BBQ Pork), to the okay(the "Krab" thing), to the less than okay(squid). All topped off with fried shallots and cilantro.
As you can see the varying colors were very pleasing to the eye.
All this was served with a bowl of mild broth flavored with fried garlic, shallots, and green onions, and best of all a nice slightly sweet-soy with garlic and a slight "slick" of oil. This reminded me of the sauce used for Cheong Fun.
The noodles were a study in contrast, the crunchy egg noodles(Mi), and the slightly elastic Hieu Tu.
Combined with the leaves and stems of Chinese Celery, the textures could not be beat. The only problem was that the stems of the Chinese Celery were cut too long, and had to be broken into smaller pieces (Chinese Celery is very tough), to make it manageable. Still, after pouring the soy over the everything and mixing, and occasionally refreshing myself with the broth, this was a very nice dish.
"Andy" who was our Server was very nice, and came back to check on us to see how we enjoyed everything. We did find the prices to be a bit higher than the norm, but the ingredients were fresh, and of good quality, so there were no complaints from me. The Missus really enjoyed the Hu Tieu, so we figured we’d be back soon…….. Stay tuned for Part 2!
Part 2 can be found here.
Pho King Restaurant
4658 El Cajon Blvd
San Diego, CA 92115