You be a phool to not order pho here and that's exactly what we did for dinner last night. We had just come back from an exhausting bike ride of the Toronto Islands and the phor of us were famished.
Usually I order my go to 'bun vermicelli with chicken and spring roll' but one of my friends was just raving about this amazing and cheap unphogettable experience he had at Xe Lua, c'mon! that prompted me to hunt on Yelp for a Pho restaurant that we hadn't all gone to.
Voila Pho Pasteur! Got good reviews. Only one of the phor of us had been. (not me) No bias.
I've walked pass Pho Pasteur several times it's just a stone throw away from the corner of Spadina and Dundas and it's open twenty pho hrs! Honestly though I'm not a phonatic about eating soup. I do have it from time to time when I'm sick and seeking comfort food.
I must add I did have my fair share of pho back in the day though after a late night car meets/club/party, we'd get pho'ed up as they were the only places open so late.
Atmosphere: its family oriented lots of tables for phors. Decor standard. Good lighting.
Pho usually cheap right??! Well not here. I cracked open the menu, wtp things were priced 30-40% more than Xu Lua ?! ie. $9 bowls instead of $6 , a spring roll order is $7.45
Granted I don't mind paying more if it's worth it.. but that had to be determined. Anyways did I find something I took a liking to from the menu description.
Rice Noodle Bowl + Grilled Chicken (served on the side) came in just the Large size. $12
The wait no more than 7 mins when the bowls of soup arrived.
Revelation moment:
Dayum this is good broth, it has various levels of flavour. The rice noodle used is the banh pho, translucent and flavorless type not the flat ho fan mush you find at many shops. The noodle is more firm in texture.
This experience sets the mark so far, it's my Pho baseline for 2012.
It was excellent and worth the price of admission. My friend also admitted he liked the broth better than what he had at Xe Lua.
To settle the score with my friend, we paid the bill and walk over to Xe Lua to do a back to back comparison.. You'll have to check the upcoming review for that one. :)
Pho Pasteur Pho Sho!