Deserves 3.5 STARS
I was around Whitby to get my child's passport done, and as you now know you need an appointment to go in; and Whitby was the only location available. Anyway, after our little errand we decided to stop around somewhere to grab a bite to eat.
I searched on Yelp and decided to eat at Pho Sam.
It seemed busy when we walked in for late lunch. The restaurant was very clean upon walking in, and for such a busy restaurant, there was only 1 staff working the floor and 1 chef in the back cooking it up.
We got our order in, which was the fresh shrimp rolls,
Pho Sam special, and mr. Tran got himself a vermicelli bowl.
The fresh shrimp rolls came out first accompanied with a peanut hoisin sauce which wasn't too bad, I mean you can't really mess that up. Shrimps were decent sized, had vermicelli and lettuce wrapped into a burrito baby.
This is where I deducted the stars..
Our pho and vermicelli order took 30 minutes to come out from the time we ordered our food.. in most pho businesses it usually takes max 5-10 minutes.
When it did eventually come out, there was your typical plate of Thai basil, lime wedge, and bean sprouts, but my bowl of pho looked short of a special. There was only 6 rare beef slices and rice noodles. There was no beef ball, no tendon, no brisket, not even tripe. The flavour of the soup was good though.
mr. Trans' vermicelli bowl looked surprisingly fresh and good when I saw it, but as he was eating it, his face looked dissatisfied. So I gave it a try, and I too was like hmm... the nem nuong (grilled pork meatballs) had a weird after taste to it and it was not pleasant. The thit nuong (grilled pork) was okay in taste, but texture wise, I believe they added a tenderizer to the point that the meat was too soft to chew and it felt off.
I couldn't finish my bowl of pho and neither could mr. Tran. They are surely understaffed and need more man power in the kitchen. Will not be coming back for a while. read more