WHAT THE PHO?!! WHAT THE PHO INDEED!!!
A LOT HAS CHANGED APPARENTLY SINCE I LEFT DALLAS AND THIS IS ONE OF THE SIGNS OF PROGRESSS!!
^Yes I needed to all caps that to express myself because seriously WHAT THE FUCK HAS HAPPENED? I left living in the 214, (469 if ya nasssty, 972 if you ain't..) and like a million great Asian places opened up. Now you got Indian, Chinese, Viet, Korean, etc. all up in the Frisco Mckinney area. Well mainly Plano, Frisco kinda sucks still.
But point is, growing up there was not a whole lot of great Asian places to eat for an Asian person. If you were white and didn't care then the world was your oyster. You had a plethora of Chinese Buffets named after pandas or kings, and enough drive thrus dishing out sweet and sour chicken and General Tso's you would think the General was invading the Texas.
And although there were of course pockets of great food here, especially Viet there just wasn't THIS GOING ON. A place like the kids would say these days is HASTAG LIT AS FUCKKKK #phoupallinmymouth FILTER SNAPCHAT PAAAAAAAY PAL FOR A SEPTUM PIERCINGG or whatever it is they say.
Point is man pho unless you wanted to go to Arlington was relegated to a few so so places and a couple of great places but man you were lucky if they had a Que Huong near you if you felt like pho. A FUCKING QUE HUONG. Anyone see that movie Sideways where Paul Giamatti is like fuck merlot I am not drinking Merlot! That is how I feel when Que Huong is brought up to the equation for pho. For your reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXXDC5FarhE
ANYWAY this place combines three things I love, puns, great Vietnamese food, and conveniently located inside of a grocery store so that I either 1) have a place to eat after shopping 2) curbs me from eating to much and buying too much food out of shopping in a crazed hunger state. But usually 3) happens I buy too much anyway and eat until my fat ass is full at the shop inside the grocery store.
But to the food my pho friends and my faux friends as well. First you will notice they have a lot of items and it is done in a very bright shiny well lit atmosphere. Hard to achieve when you are super market adjacent. I guess they are going for like a Vietnamese street food night market vibe. But it reminds me of like if Virgin America designed a pho restaurant. MOOOOD LIGHTING UP IN DIS BIITCH! Amazing.
Again I digress, ok seriously the food. Food is wonderful. Has all the standards, pho, vermicelli and even bahn mi. When we went there I had the pork chop rice combo plate with the meatloaf, dried skin and fried egg, my mom and aunt vermicelli and I believe a beef noodle soup.
All looked delicious and tasted that way. I also ordered an orange tea drink that was citrus and good. A bit sweet, almost too too sweet but good.
All the food tasted fresh, well cooked, and unique in that although it presented all of what you would expect in Vietnamese food it just tasted I don't know.. more alive or young? But less creepy sounding.
I guess maybe what I mean is it felt like unlike many of the other restaurants Viet or not, this place felt young enough still where they are trying to prove they are worthy. Like that they can hang and haven't gotten complacent...yet.. hopefully never.
One more thing I must mention is the Bahn mi. My only regret was not ordering more. I ordered two to go for my later obesity. Cold cult classic and a pork one. The sandwiches like all the items were reasonably and fairly priced. Almost too good of a deal. But having lived in LA for so long now I am jaded and without good viet food at reasonable prices in my area. I know LA should have some out there, but I ain't going all the way to little Saigon. My area sucks for Viet. The end.
So anyway go here for awesome Viet food and feel lucky we live in such amazing times. Well minus the whole ya know.. nation being terrified of 2017 and all but hey pho! read more