Saturday, September 3, 2011

Pho Nguyen


Location: Milpitas, CA
Cuisine type: Vietnamese, Pho
Atmosphere:  small, austere
Meal: dinner
Price range: $8 (entrees)
Overall grade: 7.7


Ben


In an area with Pho on every corner, we are still very much noobs, as this was only our second pho experience. It is a bit difficult to differentiate and evaluate these restaurants as many seem to have a very standard menu and style. The service was polite, the atmosphere pretty austere. We tried both the in house made fresh noodles and the standard thin noodles for the Pho. I found the meat servings (I had tripe, brisket and rare steak) to be pretty generous. I enjoyed the soup and the standard basil, lime, jalapeno, and bean sprouts were served. The price was $6-8 depending on the meats and the size. Overall it's a pretty standard place that does a good job on presenting quality Pho at good prices.


Food             8
Drinks           6
Atmosphere   6
Service          7 
Value            8


Nina

After another full day of unpacking boxes, we decided to take a break and head out on the town. As usual, we didn't have a precise destination in mind, but we were looking to find a Goodwill store to give away a large box of random things which should have never been packed with our belongings. In the Goodwill plaza we found a large assortment of Asian restaurants, several of which were Vietnamese, and as such specializing in Pho. We walked into one of them at random and sat down eager for the warm broth and delicious noodles to provide us much needed energy to carry on with the unpacking.

I ordered the rare steak, tripe and tendon pho with fresh homemade rice noodles. It came with sweet basil, lime and jalapenos for seasoning and bean sprouts for an extra crunch. The broth was very flavorful, especially after added a mixture of all the different sauces we found on the table - sriracha, hoisin and chili. The fresh noodles were definitely much richer than the standard ramen-like noodles that typically come with the pho.

Best of all, I got a frozen coconut bubble tea (with tapioca pearls, of course). It was sweet, but not overwhelmingly so, and had a fresh taste of real, blended coconut - which is quite a treat considering how many of the bubble tea places use simply canned or powder flavors. As usual, the small version of the bubble tea was too large for me to ever hope to finish, but I can never complain of having too much dessert :)


Food             9
Drinks           8
Atmosphere   6
Service          7 
Value            10

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