Pho Throwdown

(By Jim)

Barbara and I have been busy with the kitchen. We've got our cabinets and flooring being torn out on Monday and Tuesday, flooring being installed on Tuesday and Wednesday, and appliances being delivered on Thursday. It's all finally happening, and we'll be taking pictures and posting them.

We'll be eating out a lot this week, and be able to post some good pictures of good food. Recently, we've tried a new pho (Vietnamese Beef Soup) place, and wanted to do a pho throwdown (Pho-down?). Anyway, two weeks ago we went to Pho Hot, which gets raves on Donrockwell.com. We got our usual orders there, the spring roll, fresh roll, pho with brisket and meatballs for me, and lemongrass pork with rice noodles for Barbara.

The rolls were good, with the fresh rolls being my favorites. The spring rolls were good, made with crab meat in addition to pork, noodles, and carrots. They were a little greasy but not objectionable.
The pho was good. It had a lot more cinnamon in it than I'm used to, and I think I'd like that toned down. It was pleasant otherwise, and had a large portion of meat in it. The meatballs were finely ground, tasty and slightly chewy.

Barbara's pork was excellent, with nice bits of char on it. It was a large portion, with lots of fried onions. Barbara left noodles remaining, but ate all the rest.

Two weeks later, I have a cold. We stopped by the office of the contractor to check on our sink for the kitchen, and noticed that Pho Viet House (Rt. 1, Alexandria) was across the parking lot. So, we stopped in to get some soup for my nose.

We ordered the spring rolls, summer rolls, pho with meatballs, and lemongrass chicken with rice. The rolls came out first. The fresh rolls had a lot of mint and basil in them, and tasted very good. The fried spring rolls, on the other hand, were greasy to the point of inedible for me. Barbara used a napkin to squeeze the grease out of hers.
The pho had a lighter broth, still beefy, but much less star ansie and cinnamon and very salty. The meatballs were more coarsely ground, had more tough bits, and not quite as tasty as Pho Hot. They did provide sawtooth leaf in addition to the basil, jalapeno, and bean sprouts. It wasn't bad, but I think you can get better at other places.Barbara's chicken was very good. It was tasty dark meat that had been marinated and grilled. It came with rice and a small bowl of pho broth. It was a large portion, and too much for Barbara after the rolls, so she brought the rest home for lunch tomorrow.

We will try to get back to our usual pho place, Pho Kim, in the Rose Hill Shopping Center on Franconia Road, for the next part of the pho-down. At this point, I think their pho is still the best, followed by Pho Hot and with Pho Viet House bringing up the rear.