One thing you want to see at a restaurant is that it is super busy during lunch time. And yes, this restaurant was packed when we got there at 12:30...good sign.
FOOD
I had my same pho with rare beef, beef intestine (they say it more eloquently on the menu). The broth was good, the noodles seemed fresh, meat portion was decent. good sign
What lacked was the portion sizes were smaller than the typical Pho restaurant and side dishes. The mint leaves were so few and they only gave us 1 of the other green leaf (I don't know what it's called) when it was two of us at the table. There were no red hot chili peppers. Bad sign.
I had an avocado shake and it did not have that wonderful avocado and condensed milk taste. It was basically just a cold drink with ice bits in it b/c it wasn't blended very well. My friend had the durian shake and he said that it tasted like powdered durian, not fresh durian. bad sign.
SERVERS
The servers were quick as usual. The only problem I had was that they left the menus on our table and it took up room when we were eating. They should have taken the menu from us.
COSTS
The prices are fairly typical. $4.50 (S), $5.50 (M), $6.50 (L), $7.50 (XL). I could be off by $0.50 but it was about that price. So nice and cheap.
CROWD
When I looked around, I noticed the place was full of caucasian and indian people. There were asian people but I was just so surprised to see about half the room with blond/brown hair. lol
KICKER
So the reason why this place got a 2 was that I became sick after my meal. Not horribly sick but I had the runs. I had stomach pains as soon as we left and went to the bathroom about 3 times that afternoon.
SICK RATING : 2
1 (just a little sick) to 5 (Emergency, I think i have a parasite)