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| - Looking for a hot bowl of savory pho? Or banh mi or Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk? Whichever delicacy you seek, Superior Pho has it.
Vietnamese restaurants are relatively rare in Cleveland, and though many pho and other Asian noodle dish places continue to pop up, if you're looking for the best Vietnamese cuisine Northeast Ohio offers, look no further!
Located at E. 30th and Superior, Superior Pho is primely nestled among the some of downtown's best Asian restaurants and markets. Though the neighborhood isn't the greatest, parking to Superior Pho is very accessible (behind the building on Superior), and the staff is more than willing to chase away any suspect characters that may be lingering behind the building (no joke).
As for the food, no other Vietnamese restaurant seems to top the quality and affordability offered by Superior Pho. For just $6.95 you can treat your taste buds to a piping hot bowl of savory pho. (Pronounced "fuh," as in "fun.") As is standard, each bowl comes complete with additional accessories -- bean sprouts, mint leaves, lime, hot sauce, and your choice of meat, if wanted.
Having been introduced to authentic pho at one of our nation's Vietnamese cultural capitals, New Orleans, Louisiana, where many Vietnamese political refugees were transplanted during the Vietnam Conflict, I was a bit skeptical about how good Cleveland pho could be. (Interesting tidbit: take a trip out into the countryside of New Orleans East and be amazed at what you see -- modern settlements and farms that have striking resemblance to contemporary Vietnamese countryside, rice paddies. Its a cultural gem.) Though Cleveland's more recent Americanized pho pop-ups and even Pho #1, which is located next to Superior Pho, have disappointed in comparison to Nola pho, Superior's dish has presented itself as a true outlier -- and one of uncanny quality. Indeed it is difficult to directly compare when so far from Nola, yet after just my fifth bowl of Superior pho, it's sincerely hard not to admit that this Cleveland dish is indeed "superior" to any pho I've ever tasted. It's just so savory, and no one sip of broth or bite of noodle tastes identical to another. Each sip explodes with clues of wonderfully competing favors.
Grade: A+, because this place is just too much PHO-N
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