Category Archives: Pho

Burgers, Nolita/Soho, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Other Cuts, Pho, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Bo Caphe

September 4, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Vietnamese food is a tough nut to crack in NYC. Most of it sucks here, and the few places that people rave about just don’t really do it for me. I’ve been to places where they get one dish right, but fail on others. They have a great sandwich, but the soup in bland. You can literally go to almost any other city in America and find better Vietnamese food than you can in NYC, which baffles the living shit out of me. New York is the best at everything, so why not Vietnamese food? Who knows. The answer eludes me. Maybe the Vietnamese community just isn’t big enough here, or there aren’t enough courageous Vietnamese chefs that are willing to stretch their neck out and take a financial risk in the highly competitive and quick-to-closure NYC restaurant scene.

Goddess Kali: house sake, sparkling wine, chia seeds, hibiscus, lemon and pineapple.

In any case, Bo Caphe isn’t like those lame joints that attempt to offer traditional Vietnamese food and then fail to deliver because there is not one single Vietnamese person on staff who would know how to make the dishes. Bo Caphe is embracing the non-traditional by proudly offering fusion dishes that you can get excited about, like the Bao Burger with taro chips.

The burger had a nice char on the outside, with what seemed like diced onions mixed into the grind. It was juicy, and the steamed bun was the perfect Asian version of a soft and pliable yet strong potato bun. The addition of cilantro and green pepper sauce made it pop. The taro chips were a nice touch as well. They were thin, crisp, well seasoned and only occasionally greasy.

Being a French-Vietnamese fusion restaurant is nothing too outside the box, since binding the two cultures makes sense from a historical/colonial perspective. But Bo Caphe dives a bit further into French territory by offering a few selections that feature cheese, something largely not featured in Vietnamese cuisine, let alone Asian cuisine generally. Both the spring roll menu and bun menu featured cheese. The spring roll item, Vach Kiri, which literally translates to “laughing cow,” is a fried rice paper wrapper that’s filled with cheese and quinoa.

The fried chicken bun had some goat cheese. I enjoyed it, as it added a different texture and flavor combination to compliment the pickled carrots and daikon on top, but I can see how this might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

The braised beef bun, on the other hand, was pretty straight forward and delicious. No cheese that I could taste. And while I was eating this one I remarked that I was surprised the Bao Burger didn’t feature any cheese. Of all places to have it, that seems like the most proper fit for cheese in Asian cuisine.

The noodles here were fantastic. We tried two styles: one was cooked lemongrass beef, and the other was raw diced salmon. The salmon dish was reminiscent of a poke bowl but with noodles and fish sauce for dressing rather than soy-based sauces. It was refreshing and tasty.

The lemongrass beef was my favorite of the two. The beef was really tender and packed with great lemongrass flavor and aromas.

Both noodle dishes were topped with peanuts, shredded carrot and cucumber, fresh mint and a veggie spring roll.

The next two dishes we tried run the gamut from traditional Vietnamese to traditional French. No real fusion here; two dishes in the style of two different countries. The first, of course, is pho.

This aromatic, comforting soup is not bad for NYC pho, but my wife and I are just spoiled by the soups we had up in the mountains of SaPa in Vietnam. Nothing can compare. In any case, if you need a fix, this is not a bad bowl. The noodles are slightly different than the usual flat style (these are square spaghetti shaped, like “alla chitarra”), but the aromas are great and they use cilantro, which is what we saw in Vietnam fairly often. If you dress this bowl up with some hoisin and sriracha, you should be good.

The second dish is a marinated skirt steak with salad.

The steak was largely French-inspired, even down to the mustard seed sauce (which I liked very much). The steak was a bit over-cooked for my liking, but it packed a lot of flavor and was charred nicely on the outside. I’d order it again, for sure. 7/10.

The watercress salad featured some nice ripe avocados, tomatoes and red onions.

The dessert menu has some interesting selections. First was a molten chocolate lava cake with coconut. The lava wasn’t very melty, but the sauce that came with it was delicious. The coconut here was similar to the inside of a mounds chocolate candy bar.

This black sesame ice cream was more like a cream ice of shave ice texture and flavor; light, refreshing, icy rather than creamy. It was delicious, especially with the toasted sesame seeds on top.

This next dessert was an interesting take on the avocado shakes that I love to get from Vietnamese restaurants. This was a chocolate avocado mousse. You could taste equally the avocado and the chocolate, which was a flavor combination that I never thought or expected to like. It was great!

The only down side was that they didn’t have the spicy pineapple, sumac and mint salad dessert item. I was really looking forward to trying that out. Also just FYI: I was invited to this joint as an “influencer” – basically free food in exchange for pics and an honest review. So there it is.

BO CAPHE
222 Lafayette St
New York, NY 10012

Other, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

New Dong Khanh

June 6, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

My wife and I hit this joint when we were in Boston for the weekend attending a wedding. My wife did some poking around to find this joint, which was highly rated and with good reason. It is better than anything we have for Vietnamese food here in NYC. NYC is known for having piss-poor Vietnamese food. Shameful.

So we ordered up a bunch of our regular favorites. First were the summer rolls and spring rolls. The summer rolls (goi cuon) were great. The ingredients were all nice and fresh, with good shrimp and pork inside.

The spring rolls (cha gio) were not as good, unfortunately. They had a different wrapper than we are used to having (I’m not sure which is correct or more “authentic”), but the filling tasted more Thai or Chinese than Vietnamese.

We also ordered banh cuon; broad noodles rolled with pork meat and mushroom inside, and topped with herbs, bean sprouts, crispy onions and thick-sliced Vietnamese bologne. It was excellent!

For the soups, we tried pho with sliced eye round beef (pho tai), and bun bo hue (beef and pork noodle soup with thick spaghetti style rice noodles).

Here’s a look at the pho, which had a nice strong flavor in the broth, high quality eye round and yet a light and fresh feel to it.

The bun bo hue had a great robust flavor, but I preferred the pho. The meat was all good quality and braised nice and soft, unlike many NYC places.

We even had some avocado shakes, which are becoming increasingly rare by us in NYC, and when they do it, it is almost always bland. This one was perfect! Just the right amount of sweetness from the sweetened condensed milk.

Other flavors available:

This place is right near the south bus station, so when we are back in town again, I’m sure we will revisit.

NEW DONG KHANH RESTAURANT
81 Harrison Ave
Boston, MA 02111

Lower East Side/Chinatown, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

New Tu Do

February 27, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

My wife and I stopped in here for a quick Vietnamese fix.

I had the small bowl of Pho Tai (eye round beef only). The broth had good flavor. It was a bit salty, but overall it really hit the spot. The meat was good quality, and the herbs were fresh.

My wife tried this version of bun bo hue (another hearty type of beef stew) but with added pork as well. The broth had a shrimp paste flavor to it that really threw us off. We weren’t happy with it.

We also tried these flattened rice noodle cakes that were topped with dried shrimp powder, mung bean paste, scallions, fried onions and fish sauce. These were okay. Though I am not a fan of the dried shrimp powder in general, that flavor made much more sense here than in the paste form in the bun bo hue soup.

My wife also had a durian fruit shake. I’m not a huge fan of durian (smells like rotting garbage), but if you can get past the smell then this was actually pretty tasty.

NEW TU DO
102 Bowery
New York, NY 10013

Lower East Side/Chinatown, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Nha Trang Centre

February 22, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I am stuck waiting to see whether I have to serve on a jury down here, but the plus side is that there are some decent cheap eats joints nearby in Chinatown.

This is my second or third time eating here. My wife and I used to live around the block from about 2006-2009, and during that time was probably the last time we went.

I grabbed two of my four standard favorite Vietnamese items for lunch: pho and banh cuon. The other two are summer rolls (goi cuon) and spring rolls (cha gio).

The pho was a bit lacking in flavor. I missed the robust punch that should be associated with the broth. The noodles and beef were both of good quality though, and both the basil and the bean sprouts were nice and fresh. I generally order the Pho Tai, which contains just slides eye round meat, not the beef balls, tendon, tripe or brisket. So that could be why the broth was less flavorful. However I doubt they use different cooking vessels to create the base pho stock/broth, so diner beware.

The banh cuon, on the other hand, was pretty good. For those who don’t know what this is, the menu calls it “Vietnamese ravioli.” It’s wide, flat rice noodles that are rolled or filled with seasoned chopped meat inside – typically pork – and then topped with fish sauce, crispy fried onion, scallions, and thick slices of a processed kind of pork roll that’s similar to a bologna style lunch or deli meat. That description may sound weird to your western eyes/ears, but I assure you it’s good. Here, it was served on top of bean sprouts and some chopped lettuce.

Those two items, plus a beer, came to $21 with tax and tip included. Pretty great.

I was so pumped on the fact that I was back down in our old neighborhood with easy access to cheap Vietnamese food that I went back for dinner. There was this pork rice dish that caught my eye while I was there: Com Suon Bi Cha.

This is barbecued pork chop, shredded pork and steamed egg cake with white rice. The shredded pork was a mixture of gelatinous bits and roast pork, which go nicely with the rice for texture. The thin-sliced BBQ pork was delicious and exactly what I expected. It was tasty and had no gristled fat, with an awesome lemongrass and charred grill flavor. The rice was a tiny grain that absorbed the fish sauce nicely, and the egg cake contained a mash of what I assume was fish sauce and more ground pork meat. It came with carrots, bean sprouts, cucumber and tomato.

I also grabbed an order each of Cha Gio.

The spring rolls were crispy. I think they had more mushroom and veggies than pork inside, but I didn’t mind because all the fixings were nice and fresh. You wrap these fuckers in lettuce and then fill with cucumber, pickled daikon, carrot and mint leaves. Then you dip that shit in fish sauce and hot sauce. Delicious.

And that’s it. Tomorrow I’ll be hitting either another Vietnamese joint or a dumpling place. Nha Trang Centre is definitely good for a Vietnamese food fix. I’d skip the pho, but the other stuff is good.

NHA TRANG CENTRE
148 Centre St
New York, NY 10013

Banh Mi, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Upper West Side, Vietnamese

BONMi

December 6, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

BONMi is a Vietnamese-ish soup, sandwich and breakfast joint that opened about nine months ago on 62nd between Columbus and Amsterdam.

The menu is simple, fresh and straight-forward:

Unlike traditional pho, the soup here has very thin, rounded noodles, as opposed to wider, flat noodles. The broth is beef or veggie stock, and you can add a variety of meats as toppings. We went with 18-hour beef in beef stock, with a lemongrass sauce and everything but carrots on top. It was pretty good! Just don’t expect that robust pho flavor. This is more like a standard noodle soup than pho.

The sandwich, however, keeps it pretty real to banh mi. The flavor profile is similar, though not with exactitude, and the bread is good quality, crunchy, fresh French baguette style:

It is a bit short on length for the price point, but it is packed to the gills with meat and toppings. This is the pork belly filling:

The joint also serves pre-made salads, summer rolls and other Vietnamese items, like this fresh brewed coffee:

For all three items it was just over $22. Not bad, considering the quality was acceptable to me, and even passed muster with my wife (her heritage is Vietnamese, so she is naturally picky when it comes to anything claiming to be remotely Vietnamese). Give it a shot!

BONMI
150 W. 62nd St.
New York, NY 10023

Banh Mi, Hawaii, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Ba Le

October 16, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Ba Le – at the Cannery Mall in Maui, Hawaii.

This is fast casual Vietnamese food, which I think needs more of a presence throughout the country. Vietnamese food is generally pretty healthy and fresh, and the staple items like summer rolls, pho and banh mi are so fucking delicious. I already have a concept in mind for a chain that I think would kill… Anyway, we sampled the pho and a classic banh mi. The flavors were spot on, correct to how these items should taste.

The price for the pho was a little higher than normal, at around $9, but the portion size was big.

Banh Mi, Lower East Side/Chinatown, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Pho Vietnam

February 7, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This little spot is currently my new favorite Vietnamese food joint. It’s nice and clean inside, new-looking, and the food is really tasty. My wife and I tried a few items as a base level test run to decide if we would come back.

The pho: very flavorful, a good size, fresh ingredients. In fact they keep a jar of sliced jalapeños right there on the table next to the chopsticks, spoons, napkins, hoisin and sri racha.

The banh mi sandwich: nice and traditional, great bread, lots of filling and at least a foot long.

Next, one of my wife’s favorites: banh cuon. Really good quality shit here. Nicely cooked noodles, ample filling inside, and good slices meats and herbs.

Last was my noodle dish that had cut up spring rolls and sliced lemongrass BBQ pork chop on top. Simple and delicious.

We will definitely be coming back for more. Sit tight until then, when I can supplement the review with more deliciousness.

Okay so here’s the update as of 2/7/15:

Unfortunately this trip was not as good as the last. The avocado shake was less avocado-et, the banh cuon had grainy noodles.

The other two dishes we ordered contained meat that was a bit chewy.

I grabbed the bun bo hue, wanting to sample the more authentic flavors of this dish as opposed to the more fusion style of Obao.

For $7.50 you get a shitload of food. The bowl is huge:

The unfortunate thing about my order, however, was that the noodles were too soft (perhaps overcooked) and most of the meat was very chewy. For a stewed type dish I was hopping for softer meats.

I had the same issue with the pork casserole, or clay pot pork. The meat was pretty chewy, but the flavor was good.

Egg rolls are decent.

The avocado shake was not as sweet or rich/flavorful as other times I’ve had it:

But my wife had a decent cup of Vietnamese coffee:

PHO VIETNAM
87 Chrystie St.
New York, NY 10002

Midtown West, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Thai

Obao

January 23, 2015 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

I’ll definitely be heading back to this part-Thai, part-Vietnamese joint VERY soon. My wife and I dropped in to sample some of their noodle soups. We were greeted by a gigantic bar.

But we first stated with an app of fried tofu.

These were awesome. If this is what being a loser vegetarian is like, then I’m in! They were coated with a nice and tangy lime-fish sauce, but still retained their great crisp coating.

The soups were all amazing. I had heard great things about the pho here, so I had to give that a try.

This baby was LOADED with beef brisket and eye round. You can add meatballs for an extra $2.

The pho was good, but the noodles were a bit busted up and not the best quality. When tasting it side-by-side to the bun bo hue, there was just no comparison.

This “Vietnamese ramen” was jammed up with generous portions of thick-cut, soft, juicy pork belly AND thin sliced beef brisket. The noodles were a soft, thick buckwheat style.

The tangy bun bo hue broth was contrasted with the milky-white, creamy laksa broth.

This, too, was PACKED with meat. This soup came with thick sliced pork belly and jumbo shrimp – both of which were cooked to perfection.

It’s tough for me to choose a favorite between the bun bo hue and the laksa. Regardless of which you choose, you will be a happy eater.

UPDATE 1/31/15

As promised, I returned to try some more shit. First, a pair of really nice apps.

Sambal spiced fried squid. These were really tasty. Perfectly cooked, although the breading was a little soggy due to the drizzle of fish sauce.

The other was pork rib wrapped around sugar cane. This was excellent. The meat was similar to a braised belly more than what I expect from rib meat. The sugar cane was not quite as sweet as I had hoped.

For the entrees we tried the Southeast Asian fried rice, which included shrimp, pineapple, tomato, onion, and Chinese sausage. I liked this a lot, though there were too many large pieces of tomato.

The other entree was Pad Kee Mow, or “drunken noodle.” When put up side-by-side to nearby Noodie’s version of this dish, I would shave to choose Noodies. That doesn’t mean this dish isn’t good, however. Quite the contrary – it was delicious. But Noodies has ground shrimp in the dish in addition to the chicken, so that just takes it up a notch over this one.

OBAO
647 9th Ave.
New York, NY 10036

Banh Mi, New Jersey, Pho, Vietnamese

Phu Khang’s

January 2, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

My wife and I dropped into this joint on our way to Philly, so this isn’t a NYC joint. We were shocked to see an Asian market and two Vietnamese restaurants right in the same strip mall. We had to try the basics.

The soup was great, better than most NYC places for damn sure. Its unfortunate how bad NYC is with Viet food.

The sandwich was kickass too. The bread was correct, and they used a good ratio of the various meats inside.

And my favorite dessert of all time: the avocado shake. Delicious.

Banh Mi, Midtown West, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

CoBa 53

December 23, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

NOTE: THIS JOINT IS NOW CLOSED

My wife and I came to this joint to try some of the Vietnamese basics. We started with some drinks. I had “33,” which is a beer from Vietnam, and my wife had a lemonade mixed drink.

The first staple item to order is the spring rolls. These were not a hit for us. They were a little bland.

Next, the banh mi sandwich. This had good flavor, but the bread was all wrong (it needs to be a French baguette), and it needed more pate and another layer of meats to really fill it out. I would have liked some more slices of jalepenos and also less cilantro stems and more leaves.

The next big item to get is the pho. I liked the broth. It needed just a slight more oomph, but otherwise it was pretty enjoyable. It had sliced eye round as well as brisket. I added beef balls for an extra $2.

This next items isn’t necessarily a staple item to order, but my wife and I are fond of clay pot dishes. We got the pork belly version and it was really great. It was packed with lots of great porky and fatty meat, a boiled egg, fried tofu, squash and lemongrass.