HACK! SPLUT! COUGH! Sorry for the non-blogging 'round these parts, folks, but HACK! HACK! ACHOO! I got a nasty cold-turned-into-fever from visiting Minnesota earlier this week PHLEGM MUCUS BARBARA COE. Turns out my Weekly keeper, Nick Schou, was also sick, so we hit up our favorite remedy yesterday: the pho at Pho Hien Vuong in SanTana.
This small restaurant does not offer the best pho in Little Saigon–you'll have to tune into our coming Best of issue for that–but it is reputedly the first place in Orange County to serve the legendary Vietnamese beef-noodle soup. (I'd link to my 2005 review, but it's lost in the rabbit hole known as the Weekly's archives…). I wouldn't even recommend this place usually for pho–its recent beautification has raised prices by at least two dollars in the couple of years I've been eating here, and Pho Cali is just a few blocks away. But I still enjoy Pho Hien Vuong because they always include new entrees on their whiteboard. Yesterday, it was a perfectly fried calamari pared with an interesting dipping sauce (really, more of a salty-sour-spicy rub), which Nick and I shared, and some pan-seared beef curiosity that I will get next SNOT PHTOOEY time I visit.
Instead, I stuck with the pho. I'll spare you the descriptive couplets food critics usually use in their reviews. Good. Nourishing. Yummy. Broth. Flank. Jalapeño. Slices. Much goodness. Am recovering COUGH COUGH and whatever sound a fever sweat makes. Pho Hien Vuong muy bueno.
Pho Hien Vuong, 2525 Westminster Ave, #H, Santa Ana, (714) 554-2696.
