Neighbourhood Pho Joint

Mom was working late. Andrew had to pick something up at the Shoppers, which brought us to close to a few dinner options; Cozmos, PJ Quigley's, Tim Hortons, and the Authentic Vietnamese Pho House. It didn't take long to decide.



After a long day on Saturday and another long day at work on Sunday, I was running on fumes today. It actually felt like I was coming down with a flu. I felt exhausted, frail, and weak. All I wanted was pho to boost my energy. Anything else was just a bonus. Iced coffee? Spring Rolls? Nah, that's just greed...











There was an additional "Special Menu"that intrigued us both. I asked the gentleman what the difference was between the regular spring rolls and the spring rolls on the special menu. "The spring rolls have pork and shrimp. It's also larger and uses rice paper instead of the regular spring roll wrapper." Done. Thoughts of Little Saigon's yummy spring rolls came to mind.




The filling was well seasoned and the rice paper provided a crisp and then slightly chewy texture. We ate two pieces each and then decided to wait until after we ate half our bowls before we finished the spring rolls -- to reset our palates. Plus, I wanted to wait for the fresh Thai basil.


Small pho chin nam bo vien (aka pho with well done beef, beef flank & beef balls) for myself. It definitely hit the spot. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but these beef balls are the good ones. They're bouncy and full of flavour. It tastes just like the beef balls we get from Montreal.






Andrew's bun rieu thap cam (aka Saigon-style crab meat soup with homemade shrimp patty, fish patty, and squid patty with vermicelli noodles). He wanted to try something new. Now, usually, I have terrible luck trying new things. But Andrew? He hits jackpots after jackpots! Exhibit A: the lamb noodle soup at the Northern Dumpling Kitchen. Exhibit B: the Orochong ramen from the same trip. Case closed.

Andrew's thoughts:
The soup had a good spicy taste. The white spongy stuff looked like eggs but tasted savoury. As for the squid patties, they had dill, which was good. The shrimp patties tasted like deep fried shrimp balls at dim sum. I would definitely have this bun rieu again.

We were more than happy with our dinner. After the bill was paid, I confirmed that the restaurant did open a new location in Kanata. That's awesome news! I'm so glad to see that they're doing so well. Now they can be the neighboughhood pho joint for the Nepean and Kanata area. I just hope their quality food doesn't suffer.


Once we got home, we each enjoyed a Melona bar -- the ones I had got from T&T a few days ago. Holy fragrant ice pop Batman! It's like eating a frozen cantaloup - on a stick. These are seriously really good. I'm pretty sure they use cantaloup purée. You need to go out and buy some soon!

~*~