A Southern Tea Room For Asian Food?

When friend and faithful blog reader Amy recently sent me a rather unusual email link, I have to admit, I was a bit stymied at first. She had been perusing CraigsList when she just happened to see a post that caught her eye. Not being a prolific CraigsList user myself, I had only ever considered the website to be useful if one was selling something on-line or looking for a roommate. Apparently, Southern Gardens Tea Room had used it to promote not their traditional menu of scones, quiche, and chicken salad, but admonished readers that good versions of Asian specialties such as Pad Thai and Pho, that Vietnamese beef noodle soup that I do so much love, can be had right here in Akron. According to the restaurant, there was apparently no need to drive all the way to Cleveland anymore to experience these delicacies yourself.

I immediately went to the Internet and pulled up the website for the restaurant. Sure enough, they really were a full service tea room. However, nothing on their website said anything about Asian foods. Thinking that this might be a prank, I sent off an email to the "info@" account associated with the restaurant essentially asking, "For reals?" I didn't think much about it until several days later, I actually received a response from Joe, new manager of the restaurant (edited slightly for spelling):

"Yes it is true. My wife and partner is of Laos nationality, and she is very good at cooking her ethnic foods. So as an experiment, we decided to include some of them on our new dinner menu. We have expanded our hours to include Friday and Saturday evenings (till 9pm) and Sunday 12 to 5pm. We have not changed any of the existing lunch and tea theme that has made the Southern Gardens so popular, except to add a few more items to the lunch menu.. i.e. bacon and broccoli quiche, vegetable and shrimp summer rolls. Please stop by and see what's new.

Sincerely,
Joe and Lita"

So, I did what any curious Asian food-loving epicurean would do: I contacted Amy and a few other friends and we decided to go down for a dinner on Friday evening to check it out for ourselves. I had asked Joe if he could send us an email with the menu ahead of time so we could take a look before showing up at their doorstep. He did send me the requested email, but unfortunately, the menu had been created in Microsoft Publisher and since the only program that can open Publisher files is ... wait for it ... Microsoft Publisher*, we ended up going into the restaurant having no idea what Asian specialties awaited us this evening.

Southern Gardens Tea Room was located at 497 Portage Lakes Drive, Akron, OH 44319 and can be reached at 330-644-8363. Parking was in front of the restaurant in a small lot.

Here was a shot of the front of the restaurant:


Once inside, we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of what appeared to be a flowery, lacy, porcelain laden tea room. That this restaurant was also serving Asian food seemed incongruous with the decor. Nevertheless, after being seated at a larger table towards the front of the restaurant, we were handed our menus while our server went to get us a round of waters.

Here was a shot of the front of the menu:


What we quickly discovered as we opened the menus up was that the current tea room menu was offered at the same time as the new Asian dishes. And speaking of Asian dishes, there were three appetizers:


And five entrées:


According to our server, the new dishes had been on the menu for exactly two weeks. With so few items from which to choose, I found it interesting that one of the five entrées was chicken wings served over sticky rice. I'm not sure if that was supposed to appeal to the American diner who just had to have his order of chicken wings regardless of where he ate, because in all of the Asian restaurants at which I've ever eaten, I've never seen this dish appear on a menu.

Unfazed, I decided to start out with an appetizer, a summer roll with shrimp filling:


Here was a shot of the interior of the roll:


As soon as the dish was placed in front of me, I took my fork and tasted a bit of the dipping sauce by itself. It turned out that the sauce was straight up sweet chili sauce, like this brand, straight out of the bottle. While I personally love sweet chili sauce and use it quite often in my own cooking, I rarely use it directly as a condiment. It is usually used as an ingredient to a sauce, not as the sauce itself. The rolls were fresh and tightly rolled. The fresh mint and cilantro used in the filling added a nice herbaceous flavor that complimented the cold shrimp well. Other than the rather uninspired dipping sauce, this dish was fairly decent.

Our appetizers now out of the way, our server brought out the plate of pho "fixins" for both Amy and myself:


On this plate were the usual Vietnamese suspects: fresh basil and mint, lime wedges, and mung bean sprouts. The only thing missing that I've seen at other restaurants were freshly sliced chili peppers, usually Jalapeños. In addition to this plate, our server also brought out a plate with various condiments, including Sriracha and fish sauce. While there were lots of ways to spice up the broth, I was certainly happy to see my all time favorite, Sriracha.

Soon, our entrées arrived. Here was my pho:


What was unusual about this version of pho was that in addition to the sliced beef and beef meatballs that would definitely appeal to most carnivorous Americans, beef tendon had also been added. While this certainly makes this version of pho more authentic, most American diners would find the texture of beef tendon to be off-putting. While you normally see me championing the case for authenticity, one of the other dishes available on the menu, Sesame Chicken, seemed more Americanized Chinese than authentic, thus making me question the inclusion of the beef tendon.

I tasted the broth twice, as it came from the kitchen and after I added sauces/fixins. The remarkably clear broth had a slightly beefy flavor, but was missing some of those exotic warming spices that I have really learned to enjoy in other versions. The sliced beef was cooked completely, but was still relatively tender. The meatball was slightly chewy, disheartening to a diner used to Italian-style meatballs, but perfectly in line with other versions of pho that I've had. The rice noodles were also nicely cooked and I knew that I would be in danger tonight of saucing my shirt as I slurped these long strands up from my bowl. Overall, it was actually a decent bowl of pho. It certainly wasn't as good as say, Superior Pho in Cleveland, but more importantly, it wasn't as good as the version you can get at Siamone's Thai Pub right here in Akron.

The other two dishes that were ordered tonight were the aforementioned Sesame chicken and a plate of Pad Thai. While I tried neither, I did get feedback from the other diners that their dishes were just average. They weren't bad, but they weren't exceptional, either. I definitely feel that Amy and I lucked out tonight with our orders of pho.

Based on just the food I tasted tonight, I wouldn't hesitate to suggest that you give this establishment a try. However, given the very small number of Asian items that are available, coupled with the fact that they are only offered on Friday and Saturday evenings as well as on Sundays, and the fact that the Asian menu has only been in place for just two weeks, it wouldn't surprise me if at some point the restaurant abandons this concept and returns simply to serving just the food for which it was originally known. While the pho wasn't bad, you certainly don't have to travel to Cleveland to get a version that is superior in Akron.

* Yours truly uses a free office suite called OpenOffice that can successfully read and write Microsoft Word and Excel files. Unfortunately, there is no free equivalent for Microsoft Publisher.

Soup And Sandwich, Please, Vietnamese Style

I'll be the first to admit it, I love Vietnamese food. I can't exactly remember when I had my first taste of it, certainly it wasn't until I was into my early twenties. But from that first moment, the food from this nation has taken hold of my taste buds and never let go. Even bad Vietnamese food still manages to hit some gastronomic nerve center in my brain that just makes me sigh and say, "ahhhhh!"

While there are actually quite a few places in Cleveland to get Vietnamese, the most talked about rivalry is between Superior Pho and #1 Pho, each just across the street from the other. While some speculate that they are somehow related, I can assure you that they are not. If you spend any amount of time reading the local Cleveland food boards, you will begin to understand that each eatery has its own proponents. Having never tried either restaurant, I jumped at the chance to go there for lunch with good foodie friends Nancy and Edsel.

Superior Pho was located at 3030 Superior Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44114 and can be reached at 216-781-7462. Not surprisingly, there was no website associated directly with the restaurant at the time of this writing. Now that I've told you the official address, here's how to actually FIND the restaurant, as the front door does not face Superior Avenue. Find the corner of Superior and East 31st and make the turn onto 31st going south (it's a one way street, you can only go south). As soon as you make the turn, the parking lot for Superior Pho (and Ha Ahn, too) will be on your right. The entrance to the building is adjacent to the parking lot.

Here was what the backside entrance to the building looked like:


To go to Superior Pho, enter the door on the left side inside the entrance. If instead you wanted to go to Ha Ahn, you would continue down the hall and enter the door on the right side of the hall.

Here was the door I would be entering for lunch today:


I got there slightly before noon and there were plenty of tables. Within about fifteen minutes, however, the place was packed with hungry Clevelanders looking for a filling meal. As I sat down at the table, my server left us with menus:






Seeing that the Vietnamese soup, or pho, was available in both a small and large size, I decided instead of getting one item off the menu that I would split a second one with Edsel. And having heard how good the banh mi sandwiches were, I knew that today would be a soup and sandwich kind of day, Vietnamese style.

Not realizing how quickly the kitchen turned out orders, I went to use the restroom and was gone for maybe three or four minutes. As I walked back into the dining room, our entire meal was being served up. When I thought about it, it made sense since the key to making money during lunchtime was turning tables as often as possible.

First up was a shot of my sandwich, a banh mi thit:


And here was a shot of the inside of the crusty French roll on which it had been served:


Finally, an end shot showing you the layers of meat, pate, and vegetables:


The phrase "banh mi" more or less describes a generic sandwich of this style. Often banh mi are offered with various toppings which changes the name from something generic to more specific. Today's sandwich, with its layers of homemade pate, roasted pork, cucumber, jalapeños, cilantro and mayonnaise, epitomized a great sandwich, Vietnamese or not. The French roll was crusty on the outside and the crumb had a wonderful chew to it. Of course, the bread was wonderfully fresh. The ingredients themselves were also very tasty and nothing overpowered anything else. The last time I had a banh mi was during my trip to the North Market in Columbus while I was there during Linuxfest 2009. That sandwich was good, but this one was better.

In addition to my banh mi, I also ordered a small bowl of pho. The nice thing about Superior Pho's menu was that all the pho were the same price (small or large). You order by simply telling the waiter which type of meat you would like in it. Today I got the #3, which had a mixture of well done brisket and eye round steak.

Here was a shot of my bowl of soup:


With every bowl of pho, you get an additional plate of vegetables that you can optionally add to enhance it:


Present on today's plate were fresh bean sprouts, jalapeño slices, basil, and wedges of fresh lime. Each table had the obligatory bottle of Sriracha as well as hoisin sauce and a jar of vinegar. I normally don't bother with the hoisin or vinegar, but I am a Sriracha freak. I absolutely love the stuff. While none of my other tablemates used the fiery condiment, I loaded up; not so much that I lost the delicate flavors of the soup, but enough that a thorough cleaning of my sinuses was required by the end of the meal.

The biggest surprise was how tender the meats were. I expected the eye round steak to be tender because they put it in raw and the heat of the soup cooks it to around medium. The brisket, however, was also incredibly tender and not stringy at all. The broth was flavorful and the noodles were cooked perfectly, having just the right amount of chew to them. The only real criticism was that I wasn't getting very much of the warming spices from the star anise or clove, spices traditionally used in making the soup stock.

The cost of my soup and sandwich with tax and tip came to a meager $11 which I happily paid. I am looking forward to returning so that I can try some of the other menu delicacies that I've come to love such as the cold rice noodle vermicelli dishes and Bun Bo Hue, an already spicy soup that sounded quite good on the menu. I know I plan on adding Superior Pho on my places to return to often and take people visiting from out of town.

It has been rumored that the restaurant will be expanding into the space next door, thus increasing the number of guests they can take care of in a single seating. As long as the kitchen continues to turn out quality, tasty food like I experienced today, I don't think they'll ever have a problem filling the place up. I highly recommend you take the time to look this hidden restaurant up in order to try the food.

Two For The Price Of One: Siamone's Double Header

Visit The First

After a long week at work, I decided to treat myself and return to a small restaurant I had discovered several months ago, Siamone's Thai Pub. I had been so impressed with the quality of the food that when I wrote up my last entry covering my experience there, I actually fast tracked it to the front of my publishing queue. Since then, I had returned one other time in order to try the Phnom Penh noodles in soup, or what in most Vietnamese restaurants would simply be called Pho. I knew it was time to return to try another item that had caught my eye the first time I went.

I was slightly surprised to see that the restaurant was only half-way full when I arrived at 6:30 PM on a Friday night. I suppose I was relieved that I would be able to get a seat right away, but a little shocked that they weren't busier. Regardless, I picked out a two-top table in the moderately lit bar and ordered a water from my server. While I knew what I would be having for my entree, I hadn't quite worked out what I wanted as a starter.

As I scanned the list of possibilities, I decided to give the Coconut Chicken soup (which would be Tom Kha Gai in the original Thai) a shot, seeing that it was only $3.99. After only a few short minutes, my server returned with a large bowl of creamy soup:


Filled with mushrooms, scallions, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, red bell pepper, chicken, and most surprising of all, diced tomato, the soup was incredibly well done. It was creamy, tart, sweet, spicy and earthy all at the same time. The chicken and vegetables were cooked perfectly and the broth ... oh my gosh, the broth! Honestly, as good as the solid ingredients were in the soup, when I realized that I had eaten most of them and only broth remained, I literally picked up the bowl and held it close to my face so that the distance from the bowl to my mouth was as small as possible. The broth was absolutely divine. In an interesting twist, the tomatoes worked well because the acidity of the diced tomato, not the sweetness, actually helped cut through the fattiness from the coconut milk. The spice level was just enough to make it interesting, but not overpowering in the least. I actually thought about ordering a second bowl of this soup and just skipping the entree entirely.

After nearly licking the bowl clean after finishing the soup, I was left with this:


A lone piece of lemongrass and a single kaffir lime leaf now sat at the bottom of the bowl waiting for my server to come and take away the dirty dish to the kitchen. If you like Thai flavors, you will LOVE this soup. I was already looking forward to returning to Siamone's just for this soup.

But, I had come tonight to try something else on the menu, the Beef Bulgogi in Stone Hot Pot, or as those more familiar with Korean dishes would know it, Dolsot Bibimbap. I have eaten bibimbap at other restaurants, but only rarely been served in the stone hot pot that was infamous for creating that nice crusty rice layer at the bottom of the bowl. Bibimbap, for those who don't know, is actually two words, bibim or "stirred" and bap or "rice". The concept of bibimbap is that cooked rice is placed in the bottom of a bowl and various raw and cooked items are placed on top of it. When the diner receives her bowl, additional accoutrement called banchan are added to taste and the entire affair is stirred around with the chopsticks, thus blending the flavors before eating it. Banchan can be anything from kimchi (fermented cabbage) to gochuzhang (chili pepper paste). The word dolsot actually refers to the fact the bibimbap is served in a heated stone bowl.

Traditionally, bibimbap is topped with an egg, authentically served raw in Korea and more commonly fried in America. Unfortunately, due to Americans' wariness of eating raw eggs, most Korean cooks not only fry the egg, but cook it until the yolk is cooked all the way through. Every place I've ordered this dish, I've had to really work at making sure not only my server, but also the cook knows that while I don't mind the egg being fried, I want the yolk runny. Most cooks making this dish aren't usually American natives and don't understand the concept of "sunny-side up" or "over easy" eggs. At one place in Massillon, Ohio, I finally was able to break the language barrier by saying, "Only cook the egg on one side."

With great trepidation I waited to see what came out of the kitchen. I could actually hear my dish arriving from around the corner before I saw it. As the tray containing my bowl approached the table, I could hear and more importantly smell the rice sizzling at the bottom of the bowl. This was what was set down in front of me:


The rice was hard to see in the above photo because of all of the wonderful ingredients on top. My server mentioned that she thought the cook might have cooked the egg too long, but when she picked up the tray, the yolk jiggled so she figured it would be just fine. While the whites were a little crispier than I like, the yolk was definitely runny. In Siamone's version, none of the banchan were brought to the table. The kimchi had already been added to the bowl for me as well as a little bit of the Korean chili paste. Knowing my penchant for spicy food, I asked the waitress if she could bring me the spice condiment "caddy" that they had at the restaurant. She began to explain that the cook had added some chili paste to the dish already and I gently stopped her mid-sentence and responded, "Trust me, I'll be needing more spice than that."

While I waited, I looked at the bowl of thick darn brown sauce accompanying my dolsot bibimbap:


This was the teriyaki sauce, which was essentially soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and corn starch to thicken it. I knew that the dish came with it, but was reluctant to use it. I tasted it anyway, just to be sure. As much as I've loved Siamone's food up to this point, there was no place on that tray for this sauce. It was just a bad pairing. And for all of the tasty authenticity that Siamone's had worked so hard on promoting, I have no idea why you would pair a classically Korean dish with a Japanese sauce. Actually, not even so Japanese as the thickening of the sauce with cornstarch was more of a Chinese technique. Either way, I put the sauce to the side and waited for the condiment caddy to arrive.

Once it did, I chose to apply several heaping tablespoons of sambal, which in this case was a chunky combination of chilies, garlic, vinegar, and salt. I then broke the egg yolk with my chopsticks and stirred the entire mixture around, careful not to touch the still hot stone bowl. As I dug in, every mouthful would be different because of the stirring. One bite would contain the grilled marinated beef and some kimchi, the next bite would contain some of the crispy rice from the bottom of the bowl and the next I would get some of the shredded carrots and bean sprouts. It was an incredibly good version of bibimbap. The sambal added a nice bit of heat without overwhelming the dish entirely. I was a little worried about the kimchi already being added to bowl as it can have quite a strong flavor, but this kimchi was mild and delicious and added only the slightest bit of tang. I actually only managed to eat half of my entree and ended up bringing the rest home for a delicious lunch the next day.

Other than the really odd teriyaki sauce pairing with my entree, my entire experience just goes to underscore how really wonderful the food at Siamone's Thai Pub is. If you love these flavors or just want to learn what these flavors are, I implore you to seek out Siamone's and give them a try for yourself. While Siamone's does use local ingredients from time to time (e.g., the diced tomato in my Tom Kha Gai), she also understands the balance that the dishes from this region of the world need to have. Should you decide to order the dolsot bibimbap, I suggest you skip the teriyaki and go right for the more authentic flavor of the sambal. If you're a chili-head like me, you won't be sorry that you did. I'm looking forward to returning soon.


Visit The Second

And return I did. In doing this double header, I wanted to share even more of Siamone's wonderful menu with you, gentle reader. While I have noted before that a lot of the appetizers are fairly expensive, today I decided to try and keep the balance of the overall bill in check by choosing one of the more inexpensive entrees. In the past I have tried the chicken and coconut soup and the Cambodian spring rolls. This time around, I went with an old Thai stand-by, chicken satay:


All of the elements of a typical chicken satay were on the plate, however, there were a few differences. For starters, the normal sweet and sour sauce with a few pickled vegetables were replaced by it's opposite, a lot of pickled vegetables with just a little bit of sauce. While the flavor was most familiar, the use of the the condiment as a "dipping" sauce was obviously lost. I had to eat or move most of the vegetables so I could get at the meager amount in the bottom of the cup. The second deviation was in the peanut sauce. While the sauce did have peanuts in it, it tasted much more strongly of butter, to the point of reminding me of a buerre blanc. The remarkably yellow sauce even made it look like it had been mounted with quite a bit of butter, too.

The chicken was nicely grilled and given the unusual flavor of the peanut sauce, overall the dish was very good. Still a bit pricey at $8, but it definitely was filling and could easily serve as a single appetizer for 2-3 adults.

For dinner tonight I decided to have a bowl of the Phnom Penh noodles in soup, or in the more Vietnamese vernacular, Pho. Even though it was one of the more inexpensive items on the restaurant's menu, it certainly wasn't lacking in flavor or portion size:


With my pho came the obligatory bean sprout and lime garnishes:


And the condiment caddy, the "box of hot":


I added a few bean sprouts, a nice squirt of lime juice and a healthy amount of one of my favorite condiments in the world, sriracha. I stirred it all into the broth and took my first spoonful. Absolute heaven. The richness from the broth, the spiciness from the sriracha, and the acid from the lime juice all played so nicely with each other. Oddly, one flavor I detected this time that I didn't the last time I enjoyed this dish at Siamone's was a gentle sweetness. It wasn't a predominant flavor, but rather subtly sitting in the background. I greedily slurped up soup, noodles, tender cuts of beef, scallion, and red pepper. Because I had finished my chicken satay appetizer, I was only able to get through about half of this bowl of soup. Fortunately, I was able to take the remainder home with me for lunch the next day. Not quite as good as fresh out of the kitchen, but still pretty darn tasty.

Overall, Siamone's Thai Pub continues to impress me with its fantastic menu and spot-on flavors. The somewhat unappealing teriyaki sauce and the rather unusual peanut sauce from my two visits here really were anomalies in the overall Asian flavor profile I have been enjoying since I discovered the restaurant. The fact that Siamone's is local to Akron just makes me that much happier. I strongly encourage you to check them out if you live anywhere in the Akron area. If you are from out-of-town and like good Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, or Cambodian food, make it a point to add a stop in your journey to try them out. You won't be disappointed that you did.

Weekend in Pittsburgh

This weekend I decided to brave the cold and snowy roads and spend some quality time with a good friend from college and his family. As it turned out, it happened to be his birthday, too. Not much discussion was needed to decide how to celebrate, however; it would be a visit to the ever cool Dave & Buster's down in the Waterfront district. My friend's brother also decided to drive in and join us.

After a number of beers and way too many games of Air Raid (holy cow, is that an addictive game -- and expense, too), we left Dave & Buster's only to discover that it had started to snow pretty hard. By this time, we had all pretty much sobered up and were in need of sustenance. I had originally wanted to come early on Saturday so that I could stop and have a local sandwich legend. Unfortunately, I hadn't left early enough and thought I had missed my opportunity. So, with great zeal I suggested we go and get a Primanti Brothers sandwich. Although there are several locations, we choose to go to the original one in The Strip (18th Street). Even though we arrived around 1 am, all the street parking was full up and there were tow trucks sitting waiting to tow anyone who parked illegally. Fortunately, Primanti Brothers has its own parking lot, which was mercifully empty. Here is the sign on the side of the restaurant:


The deal with a Primanti Brothers sandwich is that you can order whatever type of sandwich you want and they will top it with coleslaw and french fries and serve it to you on deli paper. There is nothing formal about this place. An extra order of fries? Served on another piece of deli paper. After paying for and picking up your finished order, you retire to an open table to enjoy your feast. I decided to go with a hot corned beef and provolone cheese sandwich. You'll have to excuse the lighting in the next two photos, the restaurant was dimly lit and since it was 1 am when we went, there wasn't any additional lighting available from the restaurant's front windows. First, a shot of my entire sandwich:


As you can tell from the picture, there is a LOT of bread on top of the sandwich. The bread is hand cut to order and this results in a more unique look. From the bottom up you have the bottom slice of bread, corned beef, cheese, coleslaw, french fries, and then the crown. There are really only two points to make here. First, as you can imagine, this is a challenging sandwich to eat. I had to basically employ the squish and bite method in order to fit it in my mouth. Second, this was a delicious sandwich. The vinegar and sugar that was in the coleslaw really balanced out the unctuous taste from the corned beef. It had that sweet, sour, umami combination that really went well together.

Here is a photo of half of my sandwich. You can see the layering of ingredients a little better.


The only thing I didn't really care for were the fries. I'm kind of picky about my fries and I like them crisp and not overly greasy. These were hot, yes, but a little on the limp and greasy side. They didn't really detract from the sandwich, but they also didn't really add anything either. My two comrades and I split an actual order of fries as well. Overall, this was also a pretty economical meal. Each of us had a sandwich, we split an order of fries, and two cokes totaled just around $20.

By the time we left Primanti Brothers, it was close to 2 am and we were all just itching to get back to my friend's house where we could crash. Unfortunately, the snowfall had been steady and getting progressively worse, so it took us close to an hour and a half just to get home. It was at that point we learned that my friend couldn't even get his car up to his driveway (steep hill) so we had to park at the bottom and walk the last bit. Thankfully the really cold weather had moved out of the area the night before.

Before I left Pittsburgh, I had decided to include another sandwich place in my weekend visit, only this time it would be an ethnic sandwich called banh mi. This is a Vietnamese specialty that uses a French-influenced roll filled with all sorts of meats and condiments. My Ngoc in The Strip (I had to drive right past Primanti Brothers to get here, funny, no?) is well known for their banh mi. I knew this would be the place I would be going to for lunch today.

I arrived around 1:30 pm today to find most of the lunch crowd had already gone. I was seated at a table by the window (my request) and started perusing the menu. I had assumed there would be an entire section just for the banh mi. Nope. There were two types available, chicken and beef, and both were listed in the appetizers section. Unfortunately when I asked about them, my server informed me that they weren't available. I thought about asking why they weren't available, but his English and my Vietnamese are both terrible, so I decided on a different path instead.

For my appetizer, I started out with a rather traditional Vietnamese specialty, the summer roll with shrimp and hoisin dipping sauce.


These had a nice fresh flavor to them but there was nothing really out of the ordinary in the summer rolls themselves. The real surprise was to find just the slightest bit of heat in the hoisin dipping sauce. While I certainly like my other dishes spiced with a generous serving of sriracha, it had never occurred to me to add a little spice to my summer rolls. It really worked well.

Following my summer rolls, I decided to have a version of their Pho with round steak instead of the beef ball (which comes with their standard Pho). It is closer to the Pho that I have gotten used to in Cleveland. Here is the Pho with accompanying plate of extras:


What you can partially see on the plate are bean sprouts, thai basil, and a lime wedge. You add whatever extras you like. Before adding anything to the Pho, I tasted the broth. Sublime. It was full of meaty flavor without being overly salty. I could've just eaten a bowl of this by itself. But after combining everything else with a bit of sriracha, I was in Pho heaven. It was absolutely delicious. I ate all of the broth and most of the other ingredients. I left with a warm belly to face my long drive back home to Ohio.

I look forward to trying the banh mi next time I'm back in Pittsburgh.