The first thing we noticed when we arrived at Pho Mi 99 today, is that it's no longer Pho Mi 99. The sign outside now says Pho Lam. The doors inside still have the glass frosted with 'Pho Mi 99' but the menus have the new name and are definitely different.
This is only the second time we've been to this location and the last time was a couple of years ago. To be honest, we were pretty underwhelmed the last time which is why we haven't been back. Today, we weren't sure where we were going and when we saw the name change we thought we'd give it a try.
We were greeted immediately after entering the restaurant and were brought menus and tea right away. We ordered and our food arrived within about 5 minutes.
My husband had the My Tho style noodle soup. It was really tasty and had lots of protein in it. He was happy that it had 3 shrimp and 2 quail eggs (most Viet. restaurants in the area only put in 1 egg and 2 shrimp).
I had the Tom Yum soup with beef. It really was quite good. Although it had slices of lean beef, they weren't chewy and tough as they almost always are in Viet. noodle soups. The broth was delicious; just the right balance between, spicy,salty, sweet and sour. There was also a lot of beef in it. It's one of the nicer Tom Yum soups I've had.
The restaurant looked quite clean and so did the bathrooms. Service was efficient, but they didn't notice when we left the lid open on our teapot to signal that we needed more tea. No one ever came back to the table after our food was delivered (not unusual in a Viet. restaurant).
All in all, we had a good experience at Pho Lam and will return to try some of their other dishes.