Ordered here for the first time the other evening through Uber Eats. Flavors were decent but there certainly were some negative quirky discrepancies. I wanted a nice warm bowl of phó and my relative wanted Pad Thai. Although not really a Vietnamese dish it's amazing how many Vietnamese establishments go hybrid and offer Thai food, Japanese and Korean on their menus, seems to be a common thing around Portland. I've certainly had my fair share excellent ethnic foods from Portland to LA, and well ... LA still blows Portland out of the water when it comes to culinary excellence. I'm always surprised how Portland continues to disappoint when it comes to authentic ethnic cuisine. Unfortunately Gogo Pho Bar is another example of not quite getting it right.
(Dish 1) The phó was your basic recipe, flavor was mild, nothing out of this world, but nothing terrible either. Just okay. All the usual sides were there along with a couple of big basil leaves that were half rotted, wasn't hard to miss, not sure why they didn't just pluck them off? Where they really dropped the ball was the portion size you get. Ordering online there wasn't a choice of a large or small bowl, what you get is a small bowl at large bowl price of $14 dollars with a protein. Even in a hard times economy a large bowl of phó shouldn't run more than $7-$10 dollars, there are even places around Portland who still manage to at least keep a more fair market price. Not only was the bowl portion small, but the meat to go with was about as skimpy as could be. I kept looking to see if they hid some more under the rice noodles or something. Nope! Guess this is one way to keep profits up. Yikes!
(Dish 2) Typically when I want Pad Thai I'll order it from a Thai restaurant, but that's what my relative wanted, so that's what we ordered. The actual flavor of the entrée wasn't all that bad, not overly sweet nor salty, and the portion size was okay. Pad Thai seems to come in two versions, one where the noodles have an orange glaze color to them and is often sweet tasting, the other is lighter or clear in color and is sometimes less sweet tasting. Theirs is somewhere in between. But here's where the dish really fell apart. It was basically a plate of rice noodles with a semi-sweet salty light colored sauce coating them. Again, the chicken meat portion was practically non existent, just a few medium sized chunks! Nope, there wasn't anymore that was hiding under the noodles or fell out of the container. I've never seen such drastic skimping, ever. Small spoon full of chopped peanuts, bean sprouts on the side. No scallions, no eggs. On the order I chose mild, which was odd since most Pad Thai is mild anyways. Even stranger, they tossed in a bunch of sliced jalapeños into the dish. Again, this was a first, I've NEVER seen Pad Thai with jalapeños added, especially when the request was for mild. Who does this?! Gogo Pho Bar does! I tasted it and didn't find it all that spicy, but it was noticeable. My elderly relative found it to be too spicy. I ate half of it and added a fried egg and scallions to bump up the flavors a bit, much better. So much for hybrid Vietnamese Pad Thai.
(3) Anytime I get food from a Vietnamese restaurant I haven't tried I always make sure to get a taste of their Banh Mi. So I ordered the standard grilled pork version. This was almost just right, flavor was good, bread was fresh, soft on the inside, crunchy on the outside, but it was a tad heavy on the shredded carrots and they were lumped along one side so it was impossible to take a bite and get a mixture of all the ingredients together unless you have an extra wide mouth. It was like take a bite on this side full of carrots, then take a bite on the opposite side to get the other fillings. As usual the meat portion was on the smaller side. Eee gads! $8-$10 dollars on an 8" inch French baguette is pretty much the norm around this city, of course theirs was on the higher priced side.
All in all. Way too expensive for what you get. I have to wonder if they're trying to convert everyone to vegetarian with all the meat their saving by not putting it into their entrées? Flavors are okay, but nothing stellar or out of this world. Order was on-time with little wait. read more