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| - Ahh, the crave. Having grown up Vietnamese, I consider myself something of an expert on Vietnamese cuisine. So I've had great (of course, my grandmother's and mother's food is 5 star), and I've had horrible. Pho Van (putting accents on the vowels is difficult with an American keyboard, so I'm not going to bother) falls in the middle--not my favorite, but not too bad.
We started with appetizers. Cha gio, which is a pork filled roll in a won ton wrapper, was okay. It tasted not so fresh, but had good filling, and the Nuoc Mam (a fish sauce used to flavor) was okay. My wife and I had Goi Cuon, which is a shrimp and pork, with vermicelli noodle rolled in a rice paper wrapper, was pretty good. This is dipped in a peanut sauce.
I had the basic Pho Tai. This is a soup, typically pre-prepared by putting cooked rice vermicelli noodles at the bottom of a bowl, and then very thinly sliced beef, and then hot Pho broth poured over the soup to essentially reconstitute the noodles and cook the beef. The secret to Pho is really the broth. Typically, this needs to stand on its own to make a good judgement. It does--it was flavorful, tasted fresh, and had a very rich flavor. I was pleased. For my own purposes, I do add Hoisin Sauce and Srirachi Hot Sauce. Having eaten here once before, I knew I wouldn't be disappointed. The only criticism I would have of this Pho is that there's not enough of it. The standard bowl did not have much in the way of noodles or beef. For $8, I was hoping for more food.
The rest of my family members had Bun Thit Nuong Cha Gio. This is a traditional dish with rice vermicelli noodles, barbecued pork, and cha gio, over which you pour Nuoc Mam. There is a bed of fresh vegetables. This is what I typically think of when I think of Asian Salad--it's bean sprouts, lettuce, mint, and cucumber. The barbecued pork tasted quite good as did the Cha Gio, once again. I found this food quite good as well.
The restaurant was very clean, relatively quiet. There's a very pretty fish tank. The decor was very nice. The staff was attentive, and service was quick. I note though that it was 5:30pm on a Friday, and the restaurant was unbusy. The Nuoc Mam smelled very funny to me though--I'm used to the smell of this food additive, and this one smelled quite odd to me. We are talking about something called "fish sauce" though, so I'm sure there are variants. It tasted fine so no worries. Staff needs to use cleaner towels when they wipe the tables as it does leave its own smell as well.
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