Pho Ever, 11/18/2009

After the weekly "Lounge Lizards" get-together at work, Dylan and I decided to go get some pho... My workday stand-by and favorite pho spot, Pacific Pho Noodle House is unfortunately not open for dinner and we had been to his favorite pho place in Tozai Plaza (sorry, I don't know the name of it) several times, so I charged him with finding new, unchartered pho territory...



He probably was amused by the name, Pho Ever... But this two-month-old restaurant was truly a find... A Yelp-er says that the place is very cute... It is, despite the rundown strip mall where it is located... The wood-framed booths are really cozy despite the Korean bbq grills in the center of the tables... Dylan quipped that the place looked like the home of a Vietnamese hobbit... I asked our server, who turned out to the manager, if it had been a Korean bbq restaurant and he said that the grills were going to be put to use later for some kind of Vietnamese version of bbq...

But we were there for pho... I gave my default order, rare steak pho... Dylan got more adventurous with something called Spicy Hue Style Noodle Soup with Lemongrass... This included round spaghetti-like noodles, beef, pork leg (apparently with bone and marrow included), pork sausage, shrimp cake, and a partridge in a pear tree...

Just kidding, there was no partridge in a pear tree... Actually, the shrimp cake came up missing too, unless it was a gelatinous cube that we surmised was some kind of Vietnamese blood pudding... Nevertheless, his broth was thicker than pho, and spicier without the addition of sauces or herbs...

My pho was the classic soup recipe, with unusually silky rice noodles and a very generous serving of rare beef, which cooked itself in the scalding broth... An unexpected spin on what would have been a pleasurable but predictable pho experience was the detailed training I received on how to best enjoy the beef slices ... Our server deftly poured a combination of hoisin and red chili sauce into a tiny dish and instructed me to dip the beef into it... I was so delighted with this flavor explosion that I forgot to add the dish of bean sprouts, basil, lime, and jalapeno to my steaming broth...

Another distraction was the appetizer we ordered, which Richard the server/manager swore was the best thing on the menu... It arrived, a colorful satay of beef with herbs and a bowl of fried shrimp crackers to eat with it...

The crackers made a cool sound, kind of like Pop Rocks candy exploding, when you spooned the ceviche-like beef onto them... They were good, but both of our soups had already bowled us over - no pun intended...