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| - Craving Pho, this was the only game in the Airport Rd. Hwy 7 area in Brampton. Ratings are pretty poor on Yelp! but that's generally never stopped me before.
The menu contained more than just Vietnamese food, and to reiterate my theory on that, you either have one worldly Chef at the helm, or an overly ambitious one!
The staff spoke Vietnamese, which was a little reassuring. And the majority of patrons coming in were Asian (we must have brought the crowd as there were only 2 other tables when we arrived.)
Sticking to satisfy my craving, I kept to the Viet fare. Pho Dac Biet; Bun Thit Nuong, chai tom, Cha Gio; Com Chien Bo Luc Lax.
Pho is a vermicelli noodle soup. The Dac Biet means special, which basically means it comes with everything. PHO 123's came with beef brisket, medium rare beef, tripe, beef balls, and beef tendon. The beef balls did not contain any beef tendon in its mix, which was fine by me since the dish came with beef tendon. But the tendon was disappointing as they were really small pieces. The tripe was cut into thin strips, but I prefer it that way. And the beef was thinly sliced to cook quickly in the soup. The brisket was actually excellent! Very tender and not stringy. But Pho is not about the toppings, it's about the broth! Unfortunately Pho 123 didn't even hit water after falling out of this boat. This was definitely not Pho broth, and a little on the salty. The only real explanation I can come up for this is that they made the soup from scratch (i.e. no pho cube), but if that was the case, they would not be in business for long. The broth would take several hours to cook and they would need to invest in a lot of bones. 1 star.
Thit Nuong is the same vermicelli as the Pho, but without the soup. It comes with fish sauce instead. I ordered the one that came with grilled pork, sugar cane shrimp, and a sprig roll. I forgot to mention earlier that some places give you choice of fresh vermicelli, but no such offering here. Not a big deal to me, because I've gotten used to the packaged stuff, and prefer it to fresh noodles. Much like the Pho, the accompanying fish sauce is key to this dish. That and the flavor of the grilled meats. In this case both were decent; the fish sauce not overpowering, and not too sweet. The pork was thin slices and had very subtle hints of lemongrass and onion oil. The spring roll was the smallest I've ever had, measuring just over a cm in diameter. The filling did not have the proper meat to veggie ratio, but they did use the proper (rice) wrap. What was more shocking than the spring roll was the sugar cane shrimp. Normally you get a small bulb of minced shrimp mixed with flour (or minced fish if you're lucky), but here there was no bulb. It was as if the rolled the sugar cane on shrimp batter! (See pic). 1,5 stars.
The Com Luc Lac is a rice dish with marinated cubes of tenderloin fried in Luc Lac sauce with veggies. But no such luck here, the beef was not any type of loin. It was dry and the sauce was completely off as it tasted like black bean beef (which is a Chinese sauce). The rice is normally steamed, but here they serve it with a vegetable fried rice which also lacked any depth in flavor. 1 star.
The menu also lacked in terms of drinks. No sour sop or durian shakes. No icee jelly drinks either. Overall, I think the reviews are generous. While the food didn't taste BAD in a literal sense, I did not enjoy it at all. This place shows as $$. While just about every item was under $10 (so it should be rated $), the portions are beyond skimpy. In that sense I can see why people are rating it expensive. For what you get, and the taste, the next time I need a fix, I'll hold out until I can get back to the city... no need for the two or three for Pho 123, Pho 1 is sufficient, as in Pho 1 star...
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