157 Mott Street – Little Italy/Chinatown
Vietnamese
no website

Pho Bang is a typical Chinatown establishment. It isn’t pretty, but the food is fabulous! There are a few famous Vietnamese spots in town known to have the best pho (pronounced fa). This happens to be one of them and we plan to compare and contrast. I dragged Steve out early one day when we were both hung over and I had a killer cold. Pho cures what ails you. It is a Vietnamese rice noodle most commonly served in beef or chicken soup, but also can be stir fried or in wraps.

We were served piping hot tea the moment we sat down to peruse the menu. We knew we wanted pho, but the menu is quite extensive and may need more exploration. So we chose from the short list of pho…

Steve chose #13 and I went with #14. There were 15 other options with eye of round and different noodles which looked interesting for next time. Steve’s pho was the traditional ‘beef ball’ version, which he loved, but I must say my pork chop version was out of this world.

Pho is served with Thai basil, sprouts and fresh lime garnish, which is brought to the table before the soup.

Next our soups arrived. The pork chops were sautéed in a sweet/savory sauce and served on the side with a steak knife.

Oh my, were they great. I started by just slicing up pieces of pork, then having some plain noodles.

But soon came to my senses and cut the pork chops into bite size pieces and piled on the sprouts, Thai basil, siracha (hot sauce) and squeezed in two sections of lime.

Here is a shot of the meat ball pho…

We order pho take-out pretty regularly, but this is worth a live visit. We’ll definitely return to Pho Bang again and again!