Pho Hong

Pho Hong
5975 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC

Ah, once again… Late night on Kingsway… It seems that a year or so ago, I was spending late nights in Hastings East after playing Magic the Gathering; now, I spend more time in the Kingsway side of Burnaby which leads to late night eats at times. In this case, I was looking for something “soft” for the stomach, as I had some heavy eats earlier that day. That easily took out a lot of options there and left me with something like pho…. Well, pho it is! And, among the several pho places, this time I chose to go to Pho Hong.

Now, there is no reason in particular for Pho Hong other than it was the first place I ran into… OK, that and the fact I didn’t have to do a U-turn to go to other places! Upon arriving, I noticed there were a lot of customers for late night eats. The more curious thing is that over half of them were teens or in their early 20′s. I guess it had a customer base of sorts… After seated and given the menu, I noticed something strange on my hands after starting to flip it – my hands suddenly had a sticky feeling. Go ahead and draw your own conclusion… Deciding what to order, actually, was quite an easy task – they had a special whereas I could order a large bowl (from their item list, #1 to #14) and a spring roll for $8.50

Yes, that’s a big piece of both brisket AND tendon!

Lemon instead of lime but, in either case, it worked.

In my case, I went for the all but kitchen sink pho bowl (#1). One thing that I was actually surprised was the time it took for the bowl to come out. It was less than 3 minutes between ordering and it showing up on the table! I guess they are indeed prepared to handle people mass ordering this special. And, yes, in one of those tables (around 10), all of them ordered from this special!

The meats were OK, not too exciting but they weren’t subpar either. The chicken meatball, for example, had a snappy texture but lacked a chicken taste or (similar to the beef version) some sesame. While that is acceptable given the “deal”, what was not was the broth. It was plain. Well, it had some really light beef taste but the problem is that, c’mon, you should be able to do better! As for the spring roll, it was crispy but not really pipping hot. Still, it went down easily yet, once again, it could have been better.

Overall, it is cheap eats for that time of the day. If it was the only option, it would be fine but, alas, it isn’t. Might go back if others want to go along but not necessarily my first option.

Tagged under: Burnaby • Dinner • Pho • Vietnamese