Filipino foods find home at Pho My Duyen

Friends can enrich your life in mysterious ways. For instance, lunch with one friend is often followed by being held hostage in a hunt for Pokemon. This can mean a drive into areas unknown, which is how I ended up finding Pho My Duyen.

The restaurant is at the west end of North King Street. Anyone without business in the area is just passing through en route to the freeway from Middle Street. If this were the mainland, this area would be the ground equivalent of fly-over territory.

As a hostage passenger, I had time to study the scenery, and what struck me as interesting was the restaurant’s sign advertising the unusual combination of Vietnamese and Filipino food. Not fusion, but two distinct cuisines.

We don’t usually see this sort of combination in Hawaii because most ethnic cuisines can find their own audiences, unlike parts of the mainland, where a particular Asian cuisine might have a limited following, hence the need to double or triple up.

That happens to be the case here. The owners are Vietnamese, operating in a space that was formerly home to the Filipino restaurant Sam & Syd’s Cafe. According to the owners, the audience is also predominantly Filipino, and it was in their interest to retain the chef to execute that part of the menu. What the two cuisines share is an affection for pungent fish sauces.

What’s sad is that because the Vietnamese menu has taken a back seat to the Filipino side, many Vietnamese specialty dishes have been discontinued. The menu shows numerous dishes struck through with a black bar. I would love to have tried the Vietnamese curries and traditional sizzling rice-flour pancake banh xeo, but those are gone due to lack of interest. Don’t think I didn’t try to resurrect the banh xeo, but I was told it involves too much effort for one order.

What’s left on the Vietnamese side are the namesake phos, vermicelli noodles and banh mi. I especially loved the banh mi dac biet ($6.50) filled with char siu and steamed and grilled pork. The combination, with pickled vegetables and cilantro, is irresistible.

Pho features a broth lighter on the five spice that typically flavors the noodle soup. I tried the simplest beef ($8.75) and chicken ($8.25) versions. In both cases the meat was over-boiled to the point of dryness, with the flavor drained out of them.

Cold vermicelli noodles topped with barbecue shrimp and pork, egg rolls and vegetables ($8.50) veered toward overly treacly due to the combination of sweet pork and an accompanying sauce weighted more toward sugar than vinegar and fish sauce.

While many of the Vietnamese dishes — phos, vermicelli and rice plates — are geared toward individual diners, the Filipino half is geared toward shared, family-style dining. Groups will find it reasonable to eat here.

If there were a “Price Is Right” contest for food and beauty products, I would win it; it’s a gift. Yet here I was way off the mark. I was shocked when my final bill on a couple of occasions was far less than what I had expected to pay for a feast. A meal of five dishes plus ice coffees that I estimated would cost about $75 was only $49.

I was more enamored with the Filipino menu and its more varied choices.

First-timers can get a sampling via a mixed plate with pick of two ($7.95) or three ($8.95) selections out of nine options such as pork guisantes, pork adobo, pancit bihon (noodle stir-fry) or dinuguan (blood stew). Most of these dishes would be about $8.75 each if ordered a la carte.

My favorite of these options was the guisantes, a stew of pork, peas and tomatoes, and stewed monggo (mung) beans. Ordered a la carte, the monggo beans can be supplemented with a 50-cent add-on of squash or leaves of paria (bittermelon) or marungay. I didn’t hesitate to choose the marungay. The small round leaves are the latest superfood crush, better known in health circles these days as moringa, rich in vitamins A and C, iron, calcium, folate and dozens of minerals.

Pork adobo ($8.75) was dry when I tried it, but this could change day to day because there is some inconsistency here. One day the lechon kawali ($10.75) was dry and chewy; another day the pork skin was nice and crisp. You can opt to have the accompanying onions and tomatoes served on the side or stirred in with the pork.

If you just want a taste of the pork adobo, try the adobo fried rice ($7.95), a heap of fried rice shot through with the shredded pork, all wrapped in a thin sheet of egg. This comfort dish is big enough to feed a family.

Another favorite dish was shrimp sarciado ($10.95). The shrimp stirred with tomato and beaten egg was salty, but the silky egg was soothing.

Finish with dessert of halo halo ($5.25).

Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. Reach her at nkam@staradvertiser.com.