Location: 9326 Mira Mesa Blvd - Inside Lucky Seafood Supermarket)
Phone: (858) 586-7979
Hours: : 8am-9pm, 7 days a week
Website: http://www.luckyseafoodsupermarket.com/ - this website is not super-fancy.
Katie:
After much trepidation, we decided to return to Luck Pho. But, we did have an attack plan. If Lucky Pho had a repeat performance to our first experience (see San Diego Pho Blog Hall of Laaame) we would leave our pho on the table and head to Ca Dao. Thankfully, that wasn't necessary.
Beth:
Lucky Pho is located inside a supermarket, as you may have noticed in the contact/location info above. So it is a restaurant-type setting, separate from the rest of the store, with a few TV's - the decoration is pretty subtle and understated, which is fine. It was not very busy on Saturday morning (I think we made it out there at about 10 AM- later than usual due to my post-grad student Halloween Party hangover)- less busy than nearby Cow Cali usually is at the same time on a Saturday.
The place was quite clean, and the tables have a pretty standard Pho restaurant setup- no sauce dishes, but they seem to bring them out with the food. Service was extremely quick- I think we got our pho spring rolls within 5 minutes.
The vegetable garnishes arrived before the pho. Complete plate and all fresh! With peppers, sprouts, basil, culantro and yes, limes. Limes that were a bit on the yellow side, but definitely limes. Phew! Might not turn out so bad after all.
Our first impression when the pho arrives was that the broth was a tiny bit less hot then usual and the noodles rather Al Dente. We decided to let the noodles cook for a bit and dive into the spring rolls. The spring rolls were yummy. They had mint and plentiful shrimp, so they passed, but the skin seemed oddly thick and they were heavy on the meat, light on the vegetables. The sauce was a bit sweet and not quite peanutty enough.
We returned to our pho and the noodles were perfect by now, and because they started off hard, pleasantly stayed a nice non-mushy texture till the bottom of the bowl.
But the meat! The meat was super flavorful and soft. Compared to Cow Cali, Lucky Pho wins in the meat category. When it comes to the broth though, we still prefer Cow Cali. The broth at Lucky Pho was nice because you could really taste the spices but it wasn't quite beefy enough. Good but not good enough to sip every last drop from the bowl.
Beth:
The prices seem to be pretty standard pho-place prices: $5.25 for a small bowl, which is the standard small pho size. So, we have said before that this is not a blog about spring rolls or banh mi, as wonderful as those things are. But the banh mi that can be purchased at the deli here are worth mentioning. They are buy-2-get-1 free, which is great- even better than the standard buy-5-get-1 free deal. They were $3.25 each, which is the cheapest we have found around here. They were very good- Katie thought the bread was a little soft, but I liked it. The vegetables came on the sandwiches already, which makes them a little difficult to re-heat. But the veggies were fresh and good, and the meat was also well-seasoned and tender. They had a lot of butter in them, but that was okay with me.
So, we over at the dear SDPB revoke our former probationary rating of 2 spoons out of 10 in favor of a 7 out of 10. We'd like to give it a 7.5 but we didn't want to cut a spoon in half, so you'll just have to imagine that extra half spoon.
(note: a special thanks goes out to occasional guest reviewer Adam for the title of this post)
Lucky Pho is located inside a supermarket, as you may have noticed in the contact/location info above. So it is a restaurant-type setting, separate from the rest of the store, with a few TV's - the decoration is pretty subtle and understated, which is fine. It was not very busy on Saturday morning (I think we made it out there at about 10 AM- later than usual due to my post-grad student Halloween Party hangover)- less busy than nearby Cow Cali usually is at the same time on a Saturday.
The place was quite clean, and the tables have a pretty standard Pho restaurant setup- no sauce dishes, but they seem to bring them out with the food. Service was extremely quick- I think we got our pho spring rolls within 5 minutes.
The vegetable garnishes arrived before the pho. Complete plate and all fresh! With peppers, sprouts, basil, culantro and yes, limes. Limes that were a bit on the yellow side, but definitely limes. Phew! Might not turn out so bad after all.
Our first impression when the pho arrives was that the broth was a tiny bit less hot then usual and the noodles rather Al Dente. We decided to let the noodles cook for a bit and dive into the spring rolls. The spring rolls were yummy. They had mint and plentiful shrimp, so they passed, but the skin seemed oddly thick and they were heavy on the meat, light on the vegetables. The sauce was a bit sweet and not quite peanutty enough.
We returned to our pho and the noodles were perfect by now, and because they started off hard, pleasantly stayed a nice non-mushy texture till the bottom of the bowl.
But the meat! The meat was super flavorful and soft. Compared to Cow Cali, Lucky Pho wins in the meat category. When it comes to the broth though, we still prefer Cow Cali. The broth at Lucky Pho was nice because you could really taste the spices but it wasn't quite beefy enough. Good but not good enough to sip every last drop from the bowl.
Beth:
The prices seem to be pretty standard pho-place prices: $5.25 for a small bowl, which is the standard small pho size. So, we have said before that this is not a blog about spring rolls or banh mi, as wonderful as those things are. But the banh mi that can be purchased at the deli here are worth mentioning. They are buy-2-get-1 free, which is great- even better than the standard buy-5-get-1 free deal. They were $3.25 each, which is the cheapest we have found around here. They were very good- Katie thought the bread was a little soft, but I liked it. The vegetables came on the sandwiches already, which makes them a little difficult to re-heat. But the veggies were fresh and good, and the meat was also well-seasoned and tender. They had a lot of butter in them, but that was okay with me.
So, we over at the dear SDPB revoke our former probationary rating of 2 spoons out of 10 in favor of a 7 out of 10. We'd like to give it a 7.5 but we didn't want to cut a spoon in half, so you'll just have to imagine that extra half spoon.
(note: a special thanks goes out to occasional guest reviewer Adam for the title of this post)
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Next up: Pho Time. Stay tuned.
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