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| - The atmosphere was nice and quaint although a little too dim for my liking. Nice thick real wood tables, lots of floral arrangements and art. Mellow alternative music playing in the background.
For starters we had breaded fried calamari. It tasted like beer batter or hush puppy batter. I found the heavy, battery squid ended up tasting like breaded cod from an English pub. But my wife loved it. It was redeemed by the sriracha aioli dip, which was good. The meat within was cooked expertly, not chewy at all. I just don't know about the cook's choice of batter. Why not use a panko batter?
The selection of spring rolls was impressive and daring. I liked that they were still built in the traditional style but with non traditional ingredients. The smoked salmon and cream cheese was very good, as was the one with crab, avocado, and mango. Generous helpings of green leaf lettuce poured out the ends of the rolls. The rolls were expertly wrapped and the curried dipping sauce was very good.
As far as phó goes, I'm a purist. I like the cuts of beef that most Americans shy away from. I had the phó dac biet. The phó here was okay. I enjoyed the well seasoned scratch made broth, and the basil, sprouts and lime were very fresh, but the meats are a different story. I was disappointed at the lack of tripe and tendon in my soup (only 2 pieces of each), and what little it did have was chewier and not as well seasoned as it could have been. Tendon should melt in your mouth when cooked properly, and it should be cut into little ribbons, not big chunks. Tripe should be very well trimmed so that it does not contain any off flavors. It did have lots of meatballs. My wife, who has never liked Vietnamese meatballs, liked them, as I suspected she would, since I did not think they tasted traditional at all. They tasted store bought, like something you would pick up at Costco. The thinly sliced brisket tasted not too fresh, like it had been in the refrigerator for half a week. However, it was the nice shade of pink as it should be when blanched.
My wife's soup meat was better than mine. She had phó mignon. The steak quality was very good, if you're into having non traditional phó.
All that said, I have to give huge compliments to the chef for the painstakingly beautiful presentations of every dish I saw. I suspect the chef here has had a lot of formal training in French food and steak. But he may not be a fan of tripe or tendon himself and therefore he may not fully understand how it should taste.
As far as value, I feel a little cheated. $13 for a bowl of phó is ridiculous when you can go to other Vietnamese restaurants in town and have phó just as good, if not better, for $7. The spring rolls here are $7, ($5 during happy hour), and were it not for the adventurous flavor combos, I would say they are overpriced as well. Don't waste your money trying the plain spring rolls here. Be adventurous, it's worth the extra buck or two.
All in all, I would return here for a late night spring roll when I'm downtown, but that's about all worth writing home about.
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