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Recently, it was finally time to try a Vietnamese restaurant! I had heard rumblings of Pho Phu Quoc, at 1816 Irving Street, before, however had never sampled this eating ground before. Vietnamese cuisine is still somewhat of a mystery to me, resting between Chinese food and toasted sandwiches, so I decided to opt for the unknown for this meal.

I had heard rave reviews of “Pho” here before, so I set my mind on ordering a bowl. When we arrived, the place was packed, and what’s more it was packed with white people! I immediately referred to my mental cataloging on Stuff White People Like “#71: Being the only white person around”: “In most situations, white people are very comforted by seeing their own kind. However, when they are eating at a new ethnic restaurant or traveling to a foreign nation, nothing spoils their fun more than seeing another white person. Many white people will look into the window of an ethnic restaurant to see if there are other white people in there. It is determined to be an acceptable restaurant if the white people in there are accompanied by ethnic friends. But if there is a table occupied entirely by white people, it is deemed unacceptable.” Putting this disturbing introduction aside, we pressed on into the restaurant.

We thought we’d have to wait awhile for a table, so we put in our name, and two minutes later we were seated. Looking at the menu we each picked a different dish. We settled on ordering the PPQ Beef Noodle Soup (Pho), Imperial Rolls and Charbroiled Beef Vermicelli, and the Charbroiled Beef Rice Plate. We were served tea, but no water, and some bean sprouts while we waited.

The food came pretty quickly, and was steaming hot. Again we had no water, so we had to ask the waiter to please bring us a few glasses. The Beef Pho was in a huge bowl, with all sorts of unknowns floating in the broth. We discovered beef, veggies, noodles of course, and bits of tripe.

The broth was warm and filling but lacked any sort of kick, and required a dash of hot sauce or hoisin sauce to spice it up. The beef was well-cooked, and tasty, but again a bit bland. The broth seemed to wash out everything except for the noodles, which were excellent. The conclusion was that the Pho would have been better if it didn’t have broth, which is virtually the second dish we ordered, the Charbroiled Beef Vermicelli and Imperial Rolls. The Imperial Rolls were tasty and filled with meat and veggies, and the Charbroiled Beef, when no longer soaked in watery broth, was delicious and well-cooked. A very mild dish, it still had the meaty flavors to make it interesting to the palate, and the noodles to fill you up. The meat in this dish is excellent.

Finally, we had the Charbroiled Beef Rice Plate. This is a very safe dish to order if you have never had Vietnamese food before. A simple plate composed of a pile of sticky white rice, a bed of lettuce and tomatoes, a little bowl of fish sauce to drizzle over everything, and of course, the charbroiled beef strips. This beef was some of the best I have had. It tasted almost more like Korean barbequed beef, with a distinctly sweet and grilled taste to it, which was very tasty. I couldn’t get enough of it! The fish sauce didn’t taste fishy at all, and was more like a salty vinaigrette to put over your rice, and then if your mouth felt a little too hot from the spices in the sauce, you could munch on a piece of lettuce to cool it down.

We were dismayed to find that the menu said “Cash Only-No Credit Cards Accepted,” but we saw the Visa/Mastercard sticker in the window, and after asking the waitress, found that the menus were old and that they do in fact accept credit cards. The meals are moderately priced, and the portions very sizeable. Overall, I would give Pho Phu Quoc a 4 star rating, and definitely recommend trying it!

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