Pho Kim Long

Location: San Jose, CA
Cuisine type: Vietnamese, Pho
Atmosphere: austere, family friendly dining
Meal: late lunch
Overall grade: 7.42

Ben

This place is very popular, with an authentic - and a little austere - feel, and has a large Vietnamese crowd. Tables fill and are turned over pretty quickly, and the service is generally self-serve. The menu had a large variety of ingredients for Pho's. I ordered a mix of rare beef (which could have been put in a little later to be more red) and brisket. The portion was pretty generous and the soup was flavorful. It was a conventional serving (limes, sprouts, basel, with a few pepper sauces available). Overall it doesn't stand out as extraordinary, but is a reliable, tasty, and satisfying place to get a good Pho, as is evident by the large local following.

Food 8

Drinks 7

Atmosphere 8

Service 6

Value 8

Nina

Christmas season sneaked up on us - before I knew it, it was the weekend before the holidays, and we still hadn’t used the discounted tickets I had purchased for the Gilroy Gardens Holiday lights event. Since it was a case of now or never, there was no time left to change our mind, or go home to cook a quick dinner before heading to Gilroy, so we stopped at the closest place on the way from the Great Mall to the highway headed south towards Gilroy.
I was a bit of a hole in the wall, a shabby looking front window with a modest sign announcing the restaurant name. Inside, the tables were pretty small and close together, lined up against the walls and in the middle. The menu was pertty predictable too - the majority of the space was taken up by variations of pho, half of which were different combinations of beef cuts and the rest the usual chicken, seafood, tofu. Overall, there was nothing new or surprising about this place, a pretty standard pho with affordable prices and generous portions.

Food 8
Drinks 6
Atmosphere 7
Service 6
Value 9

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