| rev:text
| - Ordered a large chicken pho for takeout. (Yes, I know, original.) Guy on the phone took my order and immediately hung up. ...Guess he was busy? Good thing I've eaten pho before, so I know how long it should take.
I get to the restaurant. Eh, a little dingy, but when I'm eating a bowl of good pho, the universe could implode, and I wouldn't notice. I personally didn't have any problems waiting to pay for my order (maybe five to ten minutes) but apparently from the other reviews there's sometimes a backup. I pay, but they have me wait a little longer because they thought I had ordered a small instead of a large. Only takes a few seconds, so I guess all they do is add more? Apparently so, because I had an OUTRAGEOUS amount of noodles. I mean, the whole container was almost exploding full of noodles. It didn't look like they gave me any more chicken, but the chicken was the real deal - good mix of white and dark meat.
Now. The Soup for me is 95% of how I view a restaurant's pho. Theirs... sucks. It was bland, smelled strange, and just didn't do it for me. This is the second "popular" pho place I've tried that has had a weird, onion-y, dregs from the deep fryer vat smell to it. I don't know if this another regional version or something, but this ain't the pho I'm used to. I've eaten pho with Vietnamese friends, so I trust that it's been original. Where is the flavor, man? I had to dump four spoonfuls of gochujang (Korean chili pepper paste) into my soup to give it any sort of flavor, and I usually prefer to eat pho bare bones. Don't even normally stir in hoisin and sriracha.
C'mon, Arizona. Is this some sort of weird initiation process I have to go through before I find a place that serves decent pho? (Now that's not totally fair; there's a place in that corner plaza on Dobson and Southern that has pretty decent pho.)
|