Viet Cali: ...Seriously? Just drive the extra 3.1 miles to Cow Cali

Pho Viet Cali
Location: 6755 Mira Mesa Blvd #113(near the Bev Mo...)

Hours: 10:30am to who cares

Photos: Courtesy of Hao and his fancy camera

Beth:

Sometimes we weary in our great quest to review every pho place in "America's Finest City"- like this last month, in which all our attempts to try new and exciting pho establishments have turned out pretty lame. Not quite Hall of Laaame-worthy, but somehow, that makes it even sadder.

Well, it was about half an hour after they were supposed to open. The door was open, but no one seemed to be in there. And certainly there were no other diners. But we're used to that by now... If you don't go to one of the really good, popular places where a lot of Vietnamese people go to eat (like Pho Cow Cali, Pho Hoa, and Pho Ca Dao- which we will be reviewing soon), then you might not see other people in there for breakfast. Frankly, this should just be a hint to us that we may not be in for much of a treat.

So we walked in... The door was just open... And someone from the kitchen came out and graciously sat us, acknowledging that they were, in fact, open.

The menu had one of those great pages where you can choose you own combination of meats. We all ordered and received our pho quickly.

Katie:

Well, I decided take advantage of this make your own pho option, particularly because their combo included meatballs, not so much my favorite. I also took this opportunity to intentionally order the "crunchy" flank as opposed to "fatty flank" and "some other flank." Well, the waitress assured me that what I ordered was the same as the combo...I figured she would just punch that into her fancy computer with a few replacements, etc.

Now...when the pho came out, it was obvious my pho had meatballs in it. Not a big deal, last time I tried them was 8 years ago so I figured it was time. Not as off-putting as my first experience but certainly wouldn't order them again.

Beth:

Yes, even though we had "created our own" combinations, the guy just brought the bowls out and said numbers, like the numbered combinations on the menu. So we had no idea whose pho was whose. Awk-waaaard....

Katie:

I did manage to order my steak on the side and the sate sauce was good, but thats about it. Oh that and, we got 20% or 25% off cause it was happy hour all day saturday. But considering Beth and I only ate 50% of our pho, not a great deal.

Most common comment was "Interesting." Meatballs were "interesting," said Hao. Broth is "interesting" says Katie.

Anyways, Beth says it best:

PREPARE YOURSELF FOR--

MORE MEDIOCRE PHO! WAH HA HA HA!!

the pho crew: "Nooooooooo!!! Haven't we suffered enough??"

Viet Cali: "NO, NOW YOU MUST EAT MORE PHO THAT IS NOT PARTICULARLY GOOD!!!"

the pho crew: "May god have mercy on our souls!!"

Back to Katie:

Verdict: 5 spoons and an imaginary half. At any rate, not good enough for Beth and I to eat more than half a bowl of pho, espechially with the knowledge that some amazing buy-2-get-1-free banh mi from Lucky awaited us (See pic below)

Lucky Pho Strikes Back

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)

San Diego Pho Blog Hall of Laaame

Here is a short list of places we've been to once in the past two years and were so turned off by their pho that we don't plan on going there to review them again any time soon. That's not to say that some of them don't have other non-pho related redeeming qualities (see Pho Sao Bien, below).

Hi Thai on UCSD La Jolla campus: Some of their food is mediocre. Lots of it is bad. The pho is nearly inedible. We give this place 1 spoon out of 10 and that's being generous.

Lucky Pho: (9326 Mira Mesa Blvd) Went here with my friend, Hao, after reading rave reviews from Kirk's blog, Mmm-yoso!, which is normally spot on about all things regarding Asian food. However, this is the one time we were disappointed by one of his recommendations. The broth had no beef flavor whatsoever (was described by Hao as water with pepper in it). The vegetables were limp, and if I remember correctly, the pho came with lemons rather than limes. We were shocked at how disapointing and non-pho-like the whole experience was. However, we may give this place one more try because it receives such good reviews from a reputable source. Maybe that was just a bad day. We give this place a probationary 2 spoons out of 10.

Pho Sao Bien: (1958 Garnet in PB- conveniently located next door to the Pretty Kitty- nothing like a bikini wax and a spring roll)

The Pho here is probably good if you're a beginner but if you've every had authentic pho, you're bound to find Pho Sao Bien rather disheartening. However, their Bun (vermicelli noodles) are pretty decent, their Banh Mi tasty, very big and only $3.50, and their Spring Rolls are the best we've found yet in San Diego. However, this is a Pho Blog, not a Spring Roll Blog, so we give them 3 spoons out of 10.

Sadly, there are probably more of these to come. Stay tuned so you can steer clear.