Category: Pho

Funny thing; much like last year, the only thing I really craved while on our trip was noodle soup….really. Not rice, but noodles. So of course when we returned I really needed to scratch that itch. Here are some of those v(re)visits.

Pho Convoy Noodle House:

**** Pho Convoy Noodle House has closed

One of the most convenient with regards to location from work.  I've had some fairly decent Pho here before, so this was an easy choice.

It was kind of strange when I arrived. It was already past 11am, yet it looked like the place had just opened. I believe they open at 10? Chairs were still stacked up and the guys working here looked like they just woke up. I should have taken this as a bad omen…..

I ordered the #2 regular (well done steak, flank, fattybrisket, tendon, and tripe $5.65). Second bad omen, the first plate of garnishes arrived and looked like we were suffering from a basil shortage here in San Diego…….really, I got more basil and bean sprouts with my pho in Madison Wisconsin! So I asked if I could have a bit more basil and perhaps some Ngo Gai. The guy grunted and removed the entire plate……

Meanwhile, my bowl of Pho arrived.

It looked really light, like bad dishwater, and man was it salty. The noodles were adequate, the protein mediocre, with just one tiny little dime sized piece of tendon. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for my basil….which finally made it's appearance about five minutes later. In retrospect I should have taken a photo. It was a brand new("different") plate which I guess they switched out. Still no Ngo Gai, blackened basil, and this time the bean sprouts were brown….taught me for asking for something here. Perhaps all their energy has gone into the second location in Chula Vista? Or was it a bad day? I dunno……

Pho Convoy Noodle House
4647 Convoy St
San Diego, CA 92111

Lucky Pho:

Always one of my favorites,  I decided on going here early one weekend morning.

I went with the flank, brisket, tendon and tripe….spelled "stripe" on the menu……

The broth looked nice and dark, not too salty on this visit; mild beef flavor, with hints of onion, a bit lighter in the anise than I recall. On my last couple of visits, they had gotten into the habit of overcooking their noodles; bot on this trip…it was nice, firm with a bit of stretch.

The protein was a bit scarce, but was never their strong point. Still, one of my favorite bowls…….

Pho Lucky
9326 Mira Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92126

Pho Cow Cali:

Mean, on the other hand, has never been an issue at the competition right across the street at Pho Cow Cali.

Man check out how much basil they gave me! Looks like an entire bush! Talk about the opposite of Pho Convoy…..

Some of it was going kind of brown, but you enough to choose from that it wasn't a problem.

Basically the same item as Lucky; but of course it looked like twice the meat.

The last couple times I've been here; the broth has been kind of weak, though it does let the flavor of the cilantro and scallions come through a bit more. I do prefer something a bit more beefy and assertive in flavor. I'm thinking that's not a big deal for a lot of the customers here, like the three Korean guys on the table next to me who almost used up the entire bottle of Sriracha and Hoisin, then asked for onions. Pho Jjim I guess? Or perhaps some hamajang ganjang?

I think folks at "Da' Cow" do a really nice job with tripe, as it's usually quite good, nice crunch with no off-tasting soapy flavor. The flank and brisket are usually good as well, full of flavor and just tender enough. Not my favorite tendon, but still good.

Still in my top three……

Pho Cow Cali
9170 Mira Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92126

Still, even Lucky and Cow Cali had me wishing for a bowl from say……Pho 86, Pho Kimmy, or Pho Thanh Lich. Which had me wondering; most of the Pho places make their broth very mild, except for salt and MSG. Do you think this is specifically done this way in San Diego? I realize that there's a bit of a chasm in terms of flavoring in San Diego. The older Vietnamese prefer something a bit stronger in flavor; the younger generation goes for something more hip, lighter in flavor, and focus a lot on decor. So is San Diego creating  it's own "pho not to offend"? Or am I just going crazy?????

Looking back, I guess I do about one of these a year. In 2009 it was Pho around Rancho Bernardo in 2010 it was Oceanside. 2011 just came and went so quickly, so to get back on track, I decided to drive up to Escondido to try a couple of places a few folks, like my buddy JohnL and occasional commenter DavidD mentioned.

Pho Saigon Express:

This is probably the one I hear about most often. I'd actually been here before, but my photos didn't turn out. So it was time to head back here again.

Having been here before, I knew that the "Tai", rare steak was pretty much the standard for the San Diego area….tough and dry. So I went with the Flank, Brisket, Tendon, Tripe. A small bowl here runs $5.99.

I was a bit surprised when my herbs and bean sprouts arrived…actually, it was more like herbs and bean sprout. Who hit the tightwad button? I asked for more sprouts and never got them. Sigh….also whats's with the lemon instead of lime? It's kind of sad thinking that I got more basil and sprouts in Madison than here.

The Pho itself is not bad.

 The noodles were quite mushy, but other than that, this was a decent bowl. The broth was light and could have used a bit more beef flavor, but it wasn't too salty. The various cuts were the highlight, well flavored and tender. Against stereotype, there was also a good amount of tripe in this as well.

Overall decent Pho, lousy service…….

Pho Saigon Express
605 N Broadway
Escondido, CA 92025

Pho Lena & Grill Vietnamese Restaurant:

****Pho Lena has closed

A bit further East on East Valley Parkway is Pho Lena and Grill Vietnamese Restaurant….man, that's a mouthful. The restaurant looks quite new and compared to Pho Saigon, the place was empty when I arrived. Looking at the menu, I noticed something strange……the exact item I ordered at Pho Saigon had exactly the same number (P4) and price ($5.99) here……

The plate of herbs and sprouts was much more than Pho Saigon and there was even a sprig of Ngo Gai, albiet a pretty old looking leaf…..

The broth here was much darker here, though still on the light side with regards to oil. The portion size was quite large for a small bowl.

The broth was pretty salty, good thing they actually have lime here. I got a strong onion flavor along with a sort of burnt flavor from the broth. The rather large portion of noodles was prepared well. The meat wasn't quite up to what I had at Pho Saigon in flavor a texture, though as you can tell by the amount of tripe, there was a decent amount of it. The one item that was better here was the beef tendon, which was sufficiently tender.

Overall, I tihnk it's a bit of a wash between the two places in terms of broth. Meat goes to Saigon, portion size to Lena. Service was much nicer at Lena.

Pho Lena & Grill Vietnamese Restaurant
1535 E Valley Pkwy
Escondido, CA 92027

So there you go, two more down…… so where to next? Vista? I know there's Pho San Marcos? You tell me……

I recently had a very friendly, but lively debate with a cousin of John and Peter. The subject was our choices for favorite Pho in San Diego. I was quite shocked when he told me it was Mignon Pho! I'd visited when they first opened, then followed up with a couple more visits, but was never impressed with the Pho. Loved the choices of local craft brews, the high ceilings, nice friendly service……but the food, well…no. Now, I realize that some folks believe I'm inordinately picky. I also realize the difference between what we consider our favorites versus the best. So feeling my way through this conversation, I went with, "oh, ok, Mignon is your favorite pho restaurant, who do you think is makes the best?" Looking at me like I had bolts on the side of my neck, the young man said, "Mignon, of course…..best broth, best noodles, best meat, just the best…." So much for the soft, diplomatic approach. Ok, fair enough, FOYs Howie and Jenne had also mentioned that Mignon Pho had improved a bit, so I figured it was time I returned.

Located in the same strip mall as Nijiya Market, Koon Thai, and Okan, I like the look of the restaurant.

The tables are nice and clean, the place looks neat and uncluttered, and there's not someone practically mugging you to order as soon as you've sat down. I do say that the place can get pretty loud fairly quickly, but I don't think that's a much of a hindrance.

The young man who took my order was very friendly and mellow and I simply went with the Regular Size Filte Mignon Pho with the meat on the side. At $7.50 for the whole shebang, I was surprised. My last visit was an $7.95 bowl of Pho with an additional charge of $1.75 for meat on the side. Nice change in this day and age.

The garnishes arrived, perhaps not a sparkling fresh as on previous visits, but looked perfectly fine.

And a minute or two later, my bowl of pho arrived.

The broth looked on the dark side and was sending plumes of steam in the air. Taking a whiff, I was disappointed, no beefiness, no anise, maybe some onion, but very weak in the fragrance department. Taking a taste would yield the same result, weak……though I got this taste, I'm thinking they may now use msg or something similar in the broth? The lack of richness didn't help matters either.

As I made my way through just about everything and anything on the plate of herbs and bean sprouts, I noticed the lack of Ngo Gai (culantro) this time around. But in it's place was a sprig of Ngo Om, the Rice Paddy Herb. I've had this many times, though never with pho. It has a citrusy taste with an earthy almost cumin like background flavor that tastes kinda odd in pho.

The meat was nice, though a bit too frozen as it took a while for it get to the lightly pink color I enjoy.

The portion size for the noodles was on the small side, though they were nicely done, slightly firm with a mild stretch to them.

But man, that broth was weak. I couldn't bring myself to finish a third of it.

For the first time I was sorely tempted to grab for one of the bottles on the table.

Now I know why each table has a large bottle of each on them.

And yet, I thought, man the service was nice and the pace very relaxed. There's got to be something on the menu I like. Then I recalled seeing this on the menu:

Man, Banh Mi Bo Kho, one of my favorite things!

So I returned for the Beef Stew…….well not quite a stew as I soon found out.

Man this was thin and insipid, truly lacking in flavor and the most watery beef "stew" I've ever had. It's almost like the pho base with some tomato and a very light touch of seasoning was added. This was really bad. It's almost like they don't know the difference between soup and stew.

I felt bad for the folks who made this…..

The bread was nice and warm and perfectly fine.

The meat on the other hand was not that great. The tendon provided was very tough and the other cuts had some flavor but were pretty dry.

What a bummer. But I did try to hedge my bets a little by choosing something a bit different, a bit fusiony, from the appetizers.

Yes, you can sigh….I actually ordered french fries. Lemongrass Garlic Fries ($4) to be exact. And they arrvied nice and hot, though I can't quite make the connection with fresh, since these were obviously mass produced frozen spuds, it's not like they cut them fresh inhouse.

Well the menu actually had the crispy on the outside and soft on the inside part right. These were also nicely seasoned with salt and what I'm thinking is granulated garlic. The lemongrass flavor was quite faint.

Well, I went to a Pho restaurant and enjoyed the fries, I think that says much more than another four or five paragraphs would. I do enjoy the service, cleanliness, and atmosphere at Mignon Pho. The craft beer, though not particularly focused seems like a nice addition. But the bottom line is, I'm here to eat………

Mignon Pho + Grill
3860 Convoy St
San Diego, CA 92111 

Postscript: The interesting thing was someone else recommended the wings here, so I actually went back again for those and even tried the pho again. The pho was just as bad….as for the wings, you'll have to stay tuned.

Man, it took me long enough to do a post on this place……I mentioned the opening of Pho Fifth Avenue way back in Apirl of 2010, intending to check the place out, but for some reason I just never made it. Reading Dennis's post on the place made it sound pretty promising, yet I still wasn't able to get my act together until recently.

The shop, now almost two years old looks like a cross between the "old school" and new style Pho shops. The dishes on the menu are listed in Vietnamese, but the descriptions are in English. The set-up is typical Pho shop, but the area is bright, clean, and well lit.

On my first visit, I ordered the Brisket, Flank, Tendon, and Tripe……I'd seen the rare steak come out and it looked like typical beef top round and folks who've read this blog over the years know how I feel about dry and tasteless "Tai". Why bother……

My bowl arrived soon after ordering, the gentleman working here was very nice and pretty friendly.

The broth was low on fat, mildly beefy, not bad overall, except for being too sweet….oddly sweet and being served a little below the temp I consider optimal. I'd also enjoy a bit more anise hints in the soup as well. The noodles were the typical clump, but were decent. As expected the garnishes were farly minimal, I used a good bit of the basil to bump up the anise flavor and a good squeeze of lime to try and balance out the sweetness.

 

You can really tell how the restaurant deals with perceived restaurant demographics with the ratio of different cuts of meat. There was a good amount of lean flank, a decent amount of brisket, I fished out one piece of tendon, a bit more chewy than I prefer, and one very tiny strand of tripe, which I had to work to find.

Overall, not a bad bowl andI did see something after I placed my order that I wanted to try, so I returned a week later….to have Filet Mignon Pho. Not cheap at $9.25 for a small and $11.25 for a large, but I really appreciate a decent bowl of Pho Filet Mignon.

Based on my previous experience with the broth temperature, I had some reservations, but this time it arrived super steaming hot. Perfect for doing a quick dunk of the precious morsels of beef.

The Pho Filet Mignon here arrives with no other protein in the broth, which was still bit on the sweet side, though not as bad as my previous visit.

The broth was also more salty and had a bit more oil than my previous bowl.

I was surprised at the amount of beef tenderloin(I ordered a small), cut a bit thinner than what I consider the norm to be. It started falling apart as I moved it from the plate to the broth for a quick dunk.

 The meat was very tender, a pleasure to eat.

I did find the amount of noodles this time around to be on the mushy side and the portion sized towards small. In fact, two hours after eating this my stomach started to growl.

Still, it was better than what I last had at Mignon Pho + Grill, though I haven't been back in a while and Howie and Jenne told me the Pho has gotten better there. So I guess I need to head back there soon.

 Pho Fifth Avenue
3807 5th Ave
San Diego, CA 92103
Hours:
Mon-Thurs 10 am – 10 pm
Fri-Sat   10 am – 11 pm
Sun       10 am – 10 pm

Man, the cold has hit me like a ton of bricks…….. I've even mentioning adopting another pup to the Missus since we've definitely had a couple of three dog nights and we're one mutt short! I'm usually not so wimpy. I'm not sure if I became used to the 80 degree plus weather on Oahu over ten short days, but walking out of the airport to temps in the high forties stopped me dead. Geeez, what a wimp……

So of course I've been craving soup, and Pho' obviously comes to mind.

Pho Lucky:

I was quite surprised when the Missus, being not much of a Pho-natic requested a bowl of Pho. We headed up to Pho Lucky.

I ordered a bowl with just tendon, brisket, and flank. The broth was on the dark side but very soothing and not too salty. Nice mild anise and onion tones. Noodles could have used less cooking time but I wasn't complaining. To my surprise (and to the really funny Server's) the Missus ordered a large Dac Biet (Special) and plowed through most of it (left the rare steak).

Timing as they say, is everything.

Pho Lucky
9326 Mira Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92126

Pho Hiep and Grill – Linda Vista:

Deciding that a Pho double dip might be just the thing, the next day I headed to Pho Hiep and Grill.

 

I grabbed a large bowl of Flank-Brisket-Tendon-Tripe. The protein items were pretty good, especially the usually tough flank cuts. The broth left something to be desired; the anise flavor was much too strong and it was salty as heck.

Can't win 'em all I guess.

Pho Hiep & Grill
6947 Linda Vista Road
San Diego, CA 92111

So what have you been consuming to stay warm? 

"You can raise your arm, you can wiggle your hand
And you can wave goodbye to the frozen man"

The Frozen Man – James Taylor

On one of my "morning drives" a couple of weeks ago, I drove into the strip mall that houses Seafood City and noticed a new Vietnamese restaurant had opened next to Siam Nara. Even though the weather had been pretty warm at the time, I thought that a nice bowl of Pho would be just the thing. It was not quite 10am, so the mercury had not yet quite reached an uncomfortable level for consuming Pho.

 

 A very friendly young man seated me by the front window and I looked over the menu which was filled with all the usual suspects (Pho of course, various egg and spring rolls, Bun, Banh Mi, etc…). The interior of the restaurant was very nicely done….not gaudy, but clean, spacious, and comfortable.

So of course I ordered some Pho…. and as is my usual M.O. I went with the Dac Biet (the special), which is a good way to find out what, if any of the meat items a particular Pho shop does well. Feeling hungry, I went with the large ($6.95)….maybe I haven't been paying much attention….but when di Pho pass the $7 mark?

 

 

 The garnishes, save for a thin, withered, leaf of Ngo Gai was impeccable, the bean sprouts were so white they almost reflected the sunlight. The broth was slightly cloudy and on the mild side for my tastes. Very faint anise and beef, low on salt, as if afraid to offend the eater. It wasn't bad, but by no means good. Protein was on the sparse side, though the flank had a nice flavor. Again, as if a "Pho focus group" had gotten together and determined that tendon and tripe were persona-non-grata, I found one thin strand of tripe, finely prepared and two small strips of beef tendon.

What amazed me was the huge clump of noodles in this bowl.

 

I don't recall having this much Banh Pho in any bowl in recent memory. Sadly, the noodles were severely over-cooked and mushy; not very pleasant to eat.

If I discounted the noodles, this would have been a decent bowl, but nothing to make me stop going to my other favorite Pho shops in Mira Mesa.

It's become a habit of mine when visiting restaurant for the first time to walk to the restrooms, especially if they are located in the rear of the restaurant as is Pho Ban Mai's. This is not because of any pernicious bladder problem, nor is it because, like some folks I know, do I usually feel the need to check out the state of a restaurant's lavatory. Rather, it allows me a chane to check out what other folks are eating…..and sometimes, as in the case of Pho Ban Mai, it pays off. There were several dishes that looked promising. So the Missus and I returned a couple of days later.

 On my previous visit, I noticed how crisp and light the Banh Xeo ($7.50) looked and it did not disappoint.

 

Thinner than most, the crepe was very crisp and not as greasy as many we've tried. Although it didn't have a whole lot of filling, the thin slices of pork were very tender. The flavor wavered was a bit heavy handed with regards to "coconutiness" but that was balanced with the nuoc mam cham which was (surprisingly) not watered down and stood up well. The lettuce and other garnishes were bright and fresh.

I'd also noticed that the Fried Rice, not something I'd usually order in a Vietnamese restaurant looked quite good. So we decided to order the Fish and Squid ($7.95) version.

 

Even though the portion was on the small size, this photo does not do it justice, as there were at least six or more shrimp (albeit a bit over-cooked) and a good amount of squid hidden in the rice. The rice also had a bit of a mildly smokey "wok-hay" thing going on which made it a pleasure to eat. Even though both items were on the small side with regards to portion size, they were both well prepared.

I thought the service at Pho Ban Mai was quite good; the Servers were friendly and attentive. This ain't your dad's menu slapped on the table and server hovering over you to take your order kind of place. It's not quite a destination for us, though if we lived in the area we'd drop by now and then.

When I mentioned the name of the place to my good friend "Yummy Yummy", she told me "what a neat name". When I inquired I was told that Ban Mai means something along the lines of "natural morning breeze" (sorry if I didn't get it right YY)……..

Pho Ban Mai
8991 Mira Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92126

Open Daily 8am – 10pm

Please check out Kirbie's post on PBM here.