For reasons that yet remain unclear to me, the Montreal Chinatown has a surprising number of Vietnamese places including a ridiculous number of pho restaurants all clustered together.
Pho Bang New York is one among the many. An old and established branch of a New York based restaurant, you can almost always expect a queue outside during lunch and dinner. The New York branch is Zagat rated, but not so sure about the Montreal version.
The whole point though is that they do in fact serve pho. How is it? Well it's pho, there's certainly no denying that, and it's even pretty decent pho and for a pretty decent price. The lime, mint, and bean sprouts were very nice. The lime was juicy, the mint leaves were crisp and the bean sprouts were clean and healthy looking. The bowl of pho noodles were cooked nicely and the broth was well flavoured.
Overall I was satisfied with the food. The service was pretty decent too even though it was crowded. Was it magical? Was it the best in Montreal? Was it anything to write home about? Not exactly. It was a nice bowl of pho. It's definitely a place I wouldn't mind going back to, but I wouldn't stand in a queue for it.