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| - Went here for lunch yesterday with the boss. I did a very cursory glance over the menu on their home page and was delighted to see that they had pho-style dishes here. Then only spent a second to check the Yelp star rating before heading out from the office. I read the reviews, as well as the owner retorts, after I got back home from the office - and laughed over the "butt-hurt one".. *8-) Reminiscent of the infamous Amy's Baking Company review and reply.. http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bella/2010/08/ouch_todays_hard_lesson_on_yel.php for those of you who missed it the first time round..
Anyway, I've never had Cambodian food before, but I'm a big fan of pho and quite partial to Thai food as well. I'm going to agree with the hard-to-findness of the location. The boss let me know where it is, Google Maps AND Waze tried to tell me where it is, and I still had to circle back and triplecheck the map out front of a 99c store before I inched back out onto Indian School and finally dodged into a tiny catty-corner parking lot with a giant Mexican circular water fountain oddly set directly into the tarmac. No other vehicles except the boss' motorbike. Inside, greeted by the waiter (I assume Yutheana) and sat with the boss. Place was completely empty (apart from us) but I liked the decor - including the concave xylophone up front which reminded me a bit of a dinosaur's ribcage. At the table, I ordered a diet cola. It tasted a little odd - not horrible or anything, but sort of.. either the syrup was off or someone had put a tiny bit of honey in it? No matter. I found the description of their Phnomh Penh soup too amusing not to order it - "Got guts? Wahey - so does this soup!" Who could resist heart, liver, intestines, ground pork and shrimp in a pho broth? The boss ordered the Amok Fish.
The waiter came over for a bit of a chat and overheard us talking about how the place was hard to find. Apparently they used to have a sign out front.. which went away for some reason. This place needs blinking neon lights and perhaps a sandwich-board holder wearing a pig intestine costume or something, because it's absolutely nondescript when you're driving past and I'm actually very surprised to see so many reviews - must be word of mouth visits because it sure as hell wouldn't be people going "Hey, check this Cambodian restaurant out that we're driving past.."
Out came our dishes. High marks for presentation - it all looked quite appetizing, especially the fish dish. Unfortunately, flavour wise, mine was.. just a'ight. I honestly don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't as confrontational a flavour as I guess I thought it might be. In fact it was rather bland. I love spicy food - especially Indian - but usually with pho I drown it in lemon or lime. I put a squirt of lime down on the top and had a few bites. Shrugged at my boss. Surprisingly the lime did nothing for this dish - but a couple of big squeeze bottles of hot sauce had been supplied and I used that instead. THEN the dish came somewhat alive! Interesting.
Would I get the dish I got again? Probably not if I was hungry and/or after something with a little taste to it, but definitely if I wanted to shock friends. The boss didn't mind his but said there were probably four other dishes he'd like to try first before re-ordering the Amok. I didn't hate this place, I certainly didn't think the prices were too high like others observed, but it wasn't stunning enough to warrant more than a "passable" rating IMO.
Now if only someone would open up a MALAYSIAN restaurant - the last time I had a decent laksa was over a decade and seven thousand miles ago. Sigh.
Edit 20120414: I came to your restaurant looking for lunch. My review THEN went on to wish for a Malaysian restaurant, riding a completely different train of culinary thought. Imagine star number 3 on my review start to flicker as its batteries begin to run out.
Edit 20121030: Dropped to a single star based on the smart-mouthed and completely unnecessary response from the owner. Will not return.
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