7/3/17
They have a…read morewebsite printed on the receipt: www.phovuong.ca. I typed that in and got "This page is under development"...
I'd put money on it being perpetually so, for perpetuity. Forever stuck in crapness.
The place wasn't busy, and they seated our party of 6 quickly, which was great. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before I saw why. For one, there are no Asian servers. Now, I dunno if that is normal in Canada, but here in America I've never ever been to a single Vietnamese place, out of probably hundreds, where the staff was void of ANY Asians (and to think of it, I think we were really the only Asians in the entire restaurant!). But hey, I'm open to new experiences... maybe that doesn't mean anything right?...
Anyway, beyond the old dinginess of the place, which would never be a deal killer for me, the real killer was the food...
?. Pho CA$11-13: Well, most of our table got pho, and you know, it all looks the same, so I'm not sure the exact one we got, but I think it's safe to say they were all equally crappy. Most importantly, the noodles were way overcooked. Mushy stranges of rice flour. It's too bad cause the soup was actually decently flavorful and the meat was quite good--fatty and luscious. But always, a whole bowl of mushy noodles?--not really edible. 2/10
39. Com Suon Bi Cha CA$12.95 "Pork Chop, Shredded Pork & Steamed Egg": This was my order. Immediately obvious upon it being placed before me was that they used the WRONG KIND OF RICE. I've gotten Vietnamese rice plates billions of times, and the vast majority use "broken rice" which would be the most authentic. It has a very different texture that goes great with fish sauce. Unfortunately, they used standard white rice, and not only that, they added too much water making it mushy! I HATE badly cooked rice. Like how hard can it be?--you measure the rice and water, turn on the steamer... should be identical every single time. Wtf. Well, the rice was wrong and inedible. The pork chop itself was standard, but I was left hungry cause I couldn't eat the rice and one pork chop ain't gonna do it for me. 2/10
Sorry, this place was one of the worst Vietnamese restaurants I've ever been to in my life.
BUT, it did have pretty good service--the waitresses were all very polite and nice to us.
1/5
#duncan #nanaimo #vancouverisland #canada #vietnamese