I crave variety when dining out, trying different dishes every time I visit a restaurant, with the exception of Vietnamese restaurants. There, I always gravitate toward one thing — bun thit nuong (grilled pork vermicelli salad), getting it with shrimp or spring rolls, if shrimp is unavailable.
It’s a shame that Vietnamese restaurants tend to have such generic names that make it difficult to differentiate one from another. But there is something about the colossal menu at Pho Vietnam that drives exploration and rewards curiosity. I went into the restaurant expecting little but pho and the same old fare, but found that great feasts await.
The Chinatown restaurant was opened seven months ago by husband-and-wife Y. Le and Kim Lien. Le said that when they married, Lien knew nothing about cooking and he had to teach her all the basics, starting with cooking rice.
Apparently, he awakened a passion that drove Lien to learn more from watching TV cooking shows to working in Vietnamese restaurants. These days, Le says he’s “nobody” at the restaurant, clearing tables while his wife is the star in the kitchen, coming up with dishes unique to Pho Vietnam like a lotus salad ($15) and banh mi combination pan ($12). That banh mi may turn out to be one of the best banh mi or breakfast sandwiches you’ll ever have, in part because you build it your way from ingredients like hamburger steak, meatballs, Vietnamese ham, liver pate, a fried egg and mayo.
The beef and meatballs taste great on their own, but layer them with the other ingredients and add the crunch of the baguette and you have a magical alchemy. The lotus salad is different from what I expected because lotus root is generally used for its crunchy, firm texture, or for show — crosscut to highlight its puka design. Here, the pickled root has the soft texture of flowers, cut into vertical slivers. It’s then tossed with pork, shrimp, chopped pig’s ears and oth er veggies in a chile and fish sauce similar to that of the more-familiar green papaya salad.
If you enjoy eating with your eyes, look no further than the restaurant’s house specialty meat trays that allow two — or more — to feast for little more than $10 per person. These involve do-it-yourself rice paper wraps, with all the ingredients — lettuce, mint, rice vermicelli, carrots, basil and other veggies — arriving in a wide, shallow bamboo basket tray. The most popular option allows you to choose three ($20) or four ($25) meat selections from barbecue pork, beef or chicken to grilled pork paste (meatballs) or grilled shrimp paste.
Dip the round rice paper sheets into hot water provided to soften them, and start layering ingredients the way you like them, finishing by dipping the rolls into the accompanying fish sauce dip.
Other trays feature shrimp and pork rolls ($18), vermicelli and fried tofu ($18), fried anchovies ($18) or banh xeo, Vietnam’s popular crispy rice pancake, or crepe, stuffed with vegetables, pork and shrimp. The sweet coconut cream in the batter stands out here, in contrast to the savory fillings.
The menu is so vast that you can spot an item and lose track of it, which is what happened to me when I fixated on fried fish. It appears as a market price clay pot entrée, along with such offerings as simmered pork ribs ($16), simmered salmon ($16) or catfish ($15), but I thought it was also available as a standalone entrée. I was surprised that it also arrived as part of a specialty tray loaded with vegetables and vermicelli. I ended up eating the fish without the wraps to reduce the risk of swallowing unseen bones.
After the drama of the trays, it’s hard to go back to more “normal” selections, although the bun bo Hue ($13) — an aromatic central Vietnamese spicy beef soup — is worth trying if you’re looking to explore soups beyond pho. It encompasses a round noodle with a thicker, savory beef broth, and, in addition to cuts of beef, it includes cubes of congealed pork blood.
The Chinese in me longed to try the shrimp with salted egg sauce ($15), but they have not had it available to date and perhaps never will because I’m the only one who has ever asked for it. I like pungent foods, so I ordered the pork ribs with fish sauce ($12), but this was too tame for me, tasting more of honey than fish.
Because of the super-sized portions, I could only scratch the surface of what this restaurant has to offer. Given how delicious the pork meatballs were, next time I will try the bun cha Hanoi, the dish made famous by Anthony Bourdain and former President Barack Obama during a 2015 restaurant outing in Hanoi. It’s not far from my favorite vermicelli bowl, just with the pork meatballs ($14) instead of grilled pork, and it also includes shrimp paste. I foresee this will become my new go-to.
Pho Vietnam
52 N. Hotel St.. Honolulu
Food: ***½
Service: ***½
Ambiance: ***
Value: ****
Call: 808-585-6276
Hours: 9 A.M.-9 P.M. daily
Prices: about $40 for two
Nadine Kam’s restaurant visits are unannounced and paid for by Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Follow Nadine on Instagram (@nadinekam) or on YouTube (youtube.com/nadinekam).
