Pho, Wardour St, Soho
I usually start my reviews with a little story of how I came to be eating at the restaurant in question or maybe even a small rant about some annoying new culinary fad, but in this case I was asked if I’d like to review Pho by their PR, so I’ll get straight to it. Tally ho!
It’s busy. It’s Wednesday. You can’t book. It’s Soho, what are you expecting? Of course. Silly me. Pho is part of a small Vietnamese ‘street food’ chain. I’ve had their take-away for lunch a few times, thought it was pretty decent so was looking forward to seeing what else they had to offer.
The room and the bar area are full, we’re left hanging round the crowded bar wondering what’s going on and how we get our name down for a table. A member of staff steps in, gets us some drinks and after a short wait we are perched on some stools at a bench-type table. Prepare to get close to your neighbours - Pho is a perfectly cosy, low-lit space but they cram you into every nook, cranny and crevice. I realise there was no need to use the word ‘crevice’ there but come on, it’s a pretty fantastic word.
Perversely, the waiter recommended a beer from Laos rather than Vietnam (BeerLao) and very good it was too. Crisp but with a slightly more malty flavour than something like Chang or Tsing Tao.
To kick things off I had Ban Xeo Tom Ga - these are thick fried crepes filled with prawns, chicken and bean sprouts. At first I though it was a bit fiddly to eat as the crepe is kind of like a giant crisp so you can’t wrap anything it in but then it was pointed out it that it comes with loads of large salad leaves in which to wrap the filling. I liked this dish, the crepes had a nice slightly chewy texture, and the leaf parcels were zingy and perfect for dipping in the little bowl of fish sauce-type stuff.
Mrs MBFBY? had prawn summer rolls. These were light and refreshing but we found them rather bland - until we smothered them in various potent sauces. They had a great texture but could have done with an additional element rather than sauce on the side.
For main it would have been rude not to have the pho, so I had the pho. It was a wonderful, huge aromatic spicy soup with rice noodles and beef meatballs floating around in it. It came with some tiny slices of chilli on the side which I was warned about but being a REAL MAN, obviously I chucked the lot in and spent the next 20 mins feeling quite light headed. I should have probably had a sit down and some sugary tea to bring me round but I just killed it with more beer instead. WARNING - DO NOT PUT THOSE CHILLIS DIRECTLY ONTO YOUR TONGUE. It will leave an intense, focused burning on you taste buds that will not go away for 45 mins. I would absolutely recommend this dish to blast out a cold.
Mrs MBFBY? went for lemongrass beef bun noodles, which was tasty (though not as full-on as the pho). Plenty of moist beef with a spring roll on the side, covered in crunchy peanuts. It’s an easy-going dish - the noodles are served at room temperature and you mix it all together to get the best out of it. Go for this if you want to play it safe.
Dessert was a winner - we shared an utterly filthy deep fried banana fritter with honey and ginger ice cream. There’s not much else to say about it apart from the fact that deep-fried desserts are usually awesome, simply because they mix sugar and batter.
To finish us off (literally) we had a couple of shots of super-strength rice wine. The Nep Fu Loc (the lighter one) was mellow and a decent palate-cleanser but the Nhat Da (the dark one) was HARDCORE. It certainly aided with digestion but I can’t say I liked it very much. It had an intense, sour taste.
So, I liked Pho. It’s informal, it’s good value (especially for me on this occasion, thanks to the PR company) and the snappy service means you could be in and out pretty quickly, making it a great place to grab some interesting food before going on somewhere else. It’s not a place to linger, but then this isn’t what they are trying to encorage. To borrow a phrase which I used on Twitter last week when contributing to the #smalltownrestaurantreviews hashtag japes, “I’ve never been to Vietnam, but it tasted pretty authentic to me”.
Pho
163-165 Wardour St
London
W1F 8WN
020 7434 3938
