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The newly-renovated Pho 1 has the nicest dining room I've seen yet (as far as Vietnamese restaurants go!), and a mean bowl of pho, to boot!
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Pho Mai. A Closer Look. 1427 S. King St. in McCully/Moiliili. 955-6583. Lunch and dinner daily. Parking in lot behind store or on street. Prices: $. Map. This tiny little store has a really great pho. The broth is rich with hints of star anise and clove, and the noodles are always done perfectly. An order of spring rolls here, another important measure of a good Vietnamese restaurant, is one of the best anywhere.
| Perhaps the most popular side dish to Pho is an order of deep-fried spring rolls - yuums! |
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Super Pho. A Closer Look. 3538 Waialae Ave. in Kaimuki. 735-9989. Lunch and dinner daily. Parking in lot behind restaurant or on street. Prices: $. Map. Super Pho has taken some knocks in the past but after a few ownership changes, the current owners seem to have gotten it right. The menu is huge and varied, with several pages of interesting choices. The papaya salad is crisp and refreshing, with a tangy-sweet dressing and some chili-induced heat that makes for a perfect appetizer shared by two, but the spring rolls are a bit smallish and not much worth the time.
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A cool, crisp, and refreshing appetizer is the papaya salad from Super Pho.
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Hale Vietnam. 1140 12th Ave. in Kaimuki. 735-7581. Lunch and dinner daily. Parking in lot behind store or on street. Prices: $. Map. Hale Vietnam was one of the first Vietnamese restaurant to make it in Honolulu, and they are still serving some great dishes. It is still one of your nicer Vietnamese restaurants, with a good supply of courteous waithelp that provide attentive customer service. Their curries are outstanding, and similar to the coconut-milk curries of Thailand. The Cadillac of spring rolls, the imperial rolls, contain more varieties of meats and fillings than regular spring rolls and are done to perfection. Hale Vietnam has become a popular stop for tourists and locals as well as the ethnic Vietnamese population, as they are often mentioned in the major guidebooks and brochures.
To Chau. 1007 River St. in Chinatown. 533-4549. 8a.m.-2:30pm daily. Parking in any municipal lot in downtown area. Prices: $. Map. To find this restaurant, all you have to do is find the river that is the western border of Chinatown and look for the long line. The guidebooks mostly rave about Hale Vietnam and To Chau, so they both get a lot of visitors. The pho is very good, but is it worth the wait, seeing that there are a number of excellent Vietnamese restaurants scattered over the island? I’ll leave that up to you.
Pho 97. 1120 Maunakea st. in Downtown Honolulu. 538-0708. 8am-9pm daily. Parking in any municipal lot in downtown area. Prices: $. Map. This downtown restaurant has a rich, beefy-flavored pho along with many choices of Vietnamese-influenced saimin, with its characteristic yellow egg noodle, as opposed to the white rice noodles of pho. The spring rolls are tasty, with decent-sized bits of shrimp, pork, and black fungus, but are smallish in size and seemingly refrigerated or frozen after wrapping, judging by the dense, slightly soggy wrapper. Pho 97 has the distinction of having a smelly, grayish-purple shrimp paste right at the table, just for the adventurous (or truly authentic!). Just mauka of the store on the same street (Maunakea st.) is another spot called Pho My Lan, which, together with Pho 97 and To Chau, make up the most popular pho hot spots in the Downtown area.
Cuu Long. 98-199 Kamehameha Hwy. at the Pearl Kai S.C. across from Pearl Ridge. 488-6041. Lunch and dinner daily. Parking at center lot. Prices: $. Map. This place also receives a lot of notoriety, with a line that often forms outside the store. The pho I’ve had came with an excellent broth that was deep, flavorful, and highly aromatic, but with noodles that were overly soft (bad day?). The spring rolls, however, were flawless, coming stocked with fresh ingredients and wrapped in a crisp, non-oily shell. The stuffed squid appetizer also looked appealing from the menu, but the actual dish came with tiny pieces of squid that were cooked down to a pitiful jerky. On top of that, you’ll need to soften sheets of rice paper in bowls of hot water, then wrap the squid, along with a separate pile of veggies, inside the sheets like a kind of Vietnamese burrito - a wee-bit tedious and time-consuming, if you ask me.
| A very tasty fried spicy lemongrass-marinated corvina at Bac Nam on S. King St. |
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Bac Nam. A Closer Look. 1117 S. King St. in McCully/Moiliili. 597-8201. Lunch and dinner daily, except closed on Sunday. Parking in lot behind store or on street. Prices: $. Map. Bac Nam has a good bowl of pho and many other great dishes to choose from. The coconut milk-based curries are a winner, coming creamy and full of herbs and spices, as are the spring rolls. The crab soup/noodle has a strong crab flavor, but not as overpowering as Pho 1, where it became a little difficult to eat mid-way through the bowl - although some may like it nice and strong, instead! Good place to take advantage of a large and diverse array of Vietnamese foods beside pho, such lemongrass chicken, shaken beef, and coconut-milk infused curries.
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