I've been stalking this place (like everyone starved for good pho) and waiting quite a long time for this joint to finally open.
Fortunately for me, an astute yet politically-correct friend of mine who also loves good authentic pho managed to hit this place up before I did. He cautioned that I would be disappointed, knowing my obsession with finding that perfect bowl of Vietnamese goodness.
Eventually I was able to find the perfect day to give this place a try. I had a cold and needed some serious pho to revitalize myself. Now I had the perfect excuse to ignore that previous warning.
Well, sadly I have to agree with my friend.
I'm not sure why this place has a high rating. Maybe it's a sign of local desperation for anything that resembles authentic pho. Maybe it's that some haven't tried the upper echelons of great pho (a good point of reference would be to hit up any of the amazing places in Northern Virginia, if you don't want to fly to the west coast or all the way to Vietnam).
For me it wasn't even much of a debate. This place didn't wow me, let alone even make me consider it to be a real competition vs some of the other pho joints in the immediate area.
The problems are:
1) The broth was highly disappointing. Even though the dark coloring suggested a savory and robust experience, it was anything but that. The soup was strangely thin and lacking in any depth. The flavor was basic and it was lacking in many respects. It's unfortunately because the broth is the foundation of the entire experience and this was a fail out of the gate.
2) I ordered a pho tai since it's the most basic and simple of the meat options. It was also a good test of the basic quality of the meat they offered. The portion of the meat was alright, but the quality was lacking. The meat was thick and tough, even when it wasn't cooked for a super long time in the broth. I was actually surprised at how mediocre this was, to put it mildly.
In addition to the pho, I also ordered their standard spring rolls. The texture was, for lack of a better word, meh. It was somewhat mushy and also wasn't that particularly tasty.
Holistically this basic combo of pho + spring rolls fell way short of the baselines set by many of the other area pho joints. It's nowhere close to what you can get in NOVA and in the west coast - it's not even in the same universe.
Now if you're desperate for pho, sure this is an option. But you're better served by checking out the other pho joints in Fort Lee than this place for now (other than Phobu, which is a culinary abomination).
I still recommend driving the extra miles to go to Binh Duong for a far better pho experience in Northern Jersey. This place is definitely not a substitute for that. read more