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| - You fellow Yelpers know I love my tastey bowl of Pho like no other and so when I heard from another website that Pho Phuong Vi received a 96% I knew I had to go and check it out for myself.
I've realized a lot of Pho establishments are trying to up the appearances of their restaurants, this means new decor, kind of designer, nice colors, nice looking menu's the whole nine yards.
However I've also noticed all these restaurants with this modern decor also lack in the taste department. Some of these places seem to spend so much money and energy they totally forget about the food itself.
As my friends and I came into the restaurant we were greeted and sat down at a table, the two staff members there seemed to be very friendly one might of possibly been the owner.
Before I continue I have to say one quick thing - when I come to a Vietnamese restaurant I always order in Vietnamese, it's a "thing" for me and it is something I always do. When I goto a Chinese restaurant and I order something in Chinese (given I pronounce it properly) I expect the same, so on and so forth. One thing that I really didn't like about this restaurant was that it seemed that my server didn't understand one bit of Vietnamese. I can tell she tried her best to memorize the menu items by ear so she could remember what number it was but in Asian restaurants I find if I order in their native language they always understand.
Anyway.
The food.
As usual I order my Pho Tai Bo Vien. I ordered in Vietnamese, repeated myself, finally just told her what number it was and ordered to their english definition. However, I also noticed that the english definition half the time was slightly off from it's true meanings. Not a big deal. I really disliked the fact and as I've said before for other Pho restaurants the one size bowl. I like to eat to my stomach's appetite and a large/x-large bowl isn't always what my stomach wants to eat and it's definitely nice to have the option.
I don't mind when restaurants serve me Pho in bigger bowls because I know their thumb's won't be inside my soup if they aren't serving me from a tray (look at my other reviews :P) but this was a gigantic bowl with not even half the bowl filled with broth. There were in my opinion not enough noodles. The beef was good no complaints in that department.
Now the broth..is what I probably disliked the most -- pretty bland, seemed to me very watered down. I never try to base my broth opinions of what I eat at my Mother's house because that would be biased. However, I can tell a bland broth from a super rich broth - just look at the color and you can tell how well the broth is made. In this case it seems to have been filtered with water so many times. I hate adding too much Hoisin sauce and Hot sauce to my broth (usually just a dribble of two) but I add to add quite a bit to get some kind of taste going.
My friend had ordered the Curry Chicken with...Noodle I do believe can't remember if it was Vermicelli or Pho noodles. It really doesn't matter. I was interested in tasting the broth because I usually will never ever have curry outside of my Ma's house.
The broth I found was very bland -- it tasted more like water than it did like curry. I don't like super strong curry tastes however I do like it to be noticeable in my mouth. I was trying to see if it tasted like East Indian curry but I don't think it was anywhere near that kind of flavor either that's why I said it tasted more on the water side.
As a side note I don't think I'll be coming back here ever again. My friend and I hung out the entire day basically and our first meal of the day was eating at this restaurant and after she had finished eating the Curry Chicken a few hours later she started vomiting and being very nauseous. After she could stop vomiting for a little while she went directly to the Doctor where he said she had received food poisoning. I assume this was because the Chicken was not properly cooked. She didn't eat anything else that day basically and it's just a matter of my opinion and what has transpired after eating there. I wasn't effected - I didn't have any of the chicken just a quick sip of some soup.
There's my review and my opinion of this place -- it probably will be a very long time before I come back here. Like I always say, International Avenue is the home of Pho. The SE/NE quadrant that that houses the majority of Pho establishments in Calgary is where to eat Pho at.
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