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| - It's funny that this place is called "Bun Bo Hue" and people came in ordering pho and complained about it. I have been a long time customer, since 2006 having been introduced by a Vietnamese friend. A couple years back I guess due to the relative obscurity of the "bun bo Hue" dish, they renamed themselves adding the "pho" as that seemed to be the only food non-Vietnamese knew about Vietnamese cuisine
Let's get to the food: bun bo Hue is a vermicelli dish, with beef shank, pork, lemongrass and lots of other herbs. This restaurant has the dish perfectly cooked. The soup base is tasty and a little bit spicy, the meat perfect. One of the hardest thing in cooking bun bo Hue is the handling of the shrimp paste. It must be there to realize the full potential of the soup base, but must not leave its slightly pungent trace behind. This place handled that perfectly. The other places (Pho Dau Bo, Pho Mi 99, etc) failed badly in this respect and I could clearly smell the shrimp paste in their soup. Some other Vietnamese places even use the pho soup base for their bun bo hue. At this restaurant, bun bo Hue is simply heaven. I ordered a large bowl every time (they recently hiked the price to something like $8.50, still a deal).
Service is fast and as expected for a typical Vietnamese joint. That means you can expect basic service, order from a piece of paper. Overall, their bun bo Hue, is the best in town. I never tried the other dishes, why try pho in a bun bo Hue place?
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