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Pho 777, a closer look
Aloha!
9/10/09 - As wifey and I approached the stairwell of the McCully Shopping Center, we noticed a new tenant there on the first floor. New to this particular unit, that is, but not to the shopping center, as this combination Chinese fast-food/local plate lunch house once formerly occupied a space on the complete opposite-end of the mall. Called Regal Diner, their new store is a step-up in every way - cleaner, bigger, fancier, and much more polished than the old, beat-up shop I did a Closer Look page on a few moons ago (Link here). They are now showing a much better side, with a colorful, attractive diner that still serves roast pork w/brown gravy and chicken katsu alongside crispy gau gee, beef broccoli, and chow mein noodles, along with a wide variety of other such favorites.
But that wasn't our actual destination for the day, so after a quick peek, we continued-on upstairs to a relatively new Vietnamese restaurant that filled the void when popular Viet Cafe closed-down a good while ago, for some strange reason. We were both hoping a worthy successor would arrive one day to carry-on the tradition.
Pho 777 happens to be the new kid on the block, and I can tell you one thing you may be pleasantly surprised and happy about - a clean, modern, reasonably stylish atmosphere almost on the level of Pho 1!
You'll also love the fact that there's a large, picture-filled menu to show off their wide variety of Vietnamese specialties, such as duck meat rolls, lemon beef salad, pan-fried crispy fish w/house special fish sauce, shrimp simmered in unsalted bacon, seafood hotpot, rice porridge with pork organs, won ton noodles, and a whole mess of other dishes.
Pho, of course, goes without saying at any Vietnamese restaurant, and it usually takes an entire page to list all the variations - pho with chicken, oxtail, tofu, veggies, beef balls (not of the Rocky Mountain variety!), tendon, rare steak, brisket, flank - and the list goes on and on. But besides an order of tendon along with beef once in a while, there's really only one choice for wifey every time - meat inside, or meat outside? Of her bowl of beef pho, that is. This time, she went with outside:
Wifey's bowl arrived piping-hot, the perfect temperature for flash-cooking the above cuts of beef to a tender, succulent finish. Unfortunately, this was one of the weakest bowls of pho I've had anywhere. The noodles were fine, al dente and everything, but any hints of star anise, cinnamon, and clove were very much lacking, and that well-rounded, beefy taste and aroma were, well, pretty darn weak, as I've said. The good thing about pho is that you have your mix of hoisin and chili sauces on the side, which provide however much flavor and punch you need, but still, the lack of a good broth does put a damper on the whole pho experience, for sure.
If beef pho in a Vietnamese restaurant is likened to both Kalua pig and lau-lau in a Hawaiian meal as main attractions to the show, spring rolls can be likened to lomi salmon as the indispensable, always-necessary side-kick and support player. Mess-up your pho, and the show is over; mess-up both your pho and your spring rolls, and it's time to go looking for another career altogether! I mean, these crispy starters did have potential, as they were large and filled with just about everything that should have been there, such as ground pork, black fungus, glass noodles, and yam or sweet potato, but they were all dried-out from over-cooking. Just judging by the color and form of the rolls shown below, you can already tell that the light, golden-brown finish normally found was shunned-away for a stiff, darkened replacement. Taken out of the hot oil 30 seconds earlier, they would have probably been delicious, but at least on this particular evening, I guess you could call that strike two...
Looking for redemption, I ordered a bun rieu, or crab noodle soup. The first mark against this dish (first, did ya say?) was actually my fault, as I forgot to tell them I wanted the flatter, pho-style noodles instead of the thick vermicelli noodles it normally comes in. Vietnamese udon, I guess, but not nearly as thick:
I don't know what it is, but I can't stand these noodles, not in soup, not in rolls, not under meat, nor in pho. Not in a box nor with a fox, not with a mouse nor in a house. I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
Sorry, I just had to do that...
But actually, it wasn't just the noodles I didn't like. It was the whole thing!
Ok, I did love those garlic chips on-top, along with some of the other ingredients in here, but this broth was just terribly lacking in taste. Bun Rieu is made from mashing whole crabs - shell, guts, and all - to a liquid pulp, then sending it through a strainer, a process that's supposed to leave you with a very strong, hearty crab flavor, but this one tasted like a few crabs short of a full bowl. Even a little salt would have helped it along, but then again, that's not quite the flavor I wanted when I made the choice.
The dish was served with its own set of greens, the majority of which came in the form of these curly strips you see in the next pic. I asked the owner (or maybe manager) what it was, and he said unchoi. I don't know about you, but that doesn't look at all like unchoi to me! Chois sum, gailon (Chinese broccoli), baby bak choy, perhaps, but unchoi?
Strike three? I'd say so. As always, though, let me also say that I could've arrived on a really bad day, maybe when the real Chef was off - who knows? Anything unbeknownst could have happened. However, there's one thing I do know that's probably a constant, and that's that although the dining room only attracted a few tables of patrons, they sure weren't showing any signs of appreciating your business! I mean, our meals were brought out mostly by a portly, rotund kind of guy from the kitchen, hair unkempt and sweating, who dropped everything off while looking like he wanted to challenge anyone around him to a kickboxing match or something. I even tried chatting-up the owner (or manager) a bit in the friendliest of ways, and there was no smile, only one word or one sentence replies, like a Clint Eastwood conversation. Water? Removing of empty plates? Checks brought to the table? Fuggedabou'dit!
Hey, I understand a lot of these ethnic restaurants - I mean, I almost expect to be semi-ignored and having to ask for anything you need, but the vibe here was beyond that, to the point of just, I dunno, being mean! Hey, who knows, maybe the grumpage was a result of him just foreclosing on the house, having the dog run over, having his wife disappear with the part-time cook, and having someone key his brand-new BMW on both sides, all in one day, so maybe I should just take it easy on the guy. I just don't know, after all.
I mean, if only the spring rolls came out juuust a little earlier, the crab noodle soup been just a bit stronger, and the pho? What the heck, there was still lots of hoisin and chili sauce to yet enjoy it. I try to give the benefit of the doubt most times, and find something nice to say about everything, but something tells me, at least on this day, the more I try apologizing for the meal, the worse I'm making it!
And so, I think I'd better stop now. Take a breather. Go to a happy place. Hmmm...
Ok, I'm fine now.
I think I'll leave you with just another shot of the entrance, now that you'll all be rushing out the door to find the place...
Hey, if anyone see's the Island Flavors book at Borders, Costco's, or anywhere else, please do let me know! I simply have no idea how long it'll take for the distributor and vendors to get everything squared away.
Meanwhile, you all best be taking care of yourselves, and Aloha till next time!
Aku
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