Pho Thanh (Vietnamese)

• Restaurant directions (can’t find a website)
• Location: Vancouver, WA
• Price to lunch two (with plenty of leftovers): $20

There’s a little Vietnamese place across from the Arlington County Courthouse, near Washington DC, which serves the hands-down best eggrolls on the planet. A Pho restaurant on the outskirts of Alphabet City in Manhattan makes noodle soups to die for at embarrassingly low prices. And a Vietnamese beef-with-baguette stew served on the Rue Verneuil in Paris still has me dreaming, years later.

Pho Thanh in Vancouver isn’t quite of that caliber, but it’s pretty daggone good. It’s also a bit of a surprise; Mom and I stopped there for lunch after visiting Dad, who’s still laid up in the rehab center with all his broken bones and physical therapy stuff. “I didn’t even know this was here,” said my mother, “We’ll have to come back.”

Yup.

This is a strip-mall place that looks a bit seedy, but inside is bright, airy and clean. The staff is exceedingly friendly and anxious to explain Vietnamese cuisine–three different smiling employees stopped to instruct us in which sauces, leaves and sprouts should go in the soup. The menu choices range from “beginner” to “specialty” stuff that includes what I call American Iffies, i.e., tripe, soft-boiled quail eggs and similar stuff that American tummies can find queasy-making.

We split an order of my favorite, salad rolls packed with crab and raw vegetables. They were on the large-ish side, nothing fancy at all, but there really doesn’t have to be when the ingredients are fresh, and these were. “This is all I need for the whole meal,” Mom said, “Thank heavens I got the small bowl of soup.”

I grinned but didn’t say anything and, sure enough, Mom’s basin of chicken soup was big enough for a family of four. She looked at it in dismay; the waiter assured her that they had BIG containers for leftovers. It was quite good, filled with solid pieces of chicken and tiny rice noodles with the requisite plate of mix-in sauces, herbs and crispy bean sprouts.

I prefer kitchen sink-style phos, and the one I ordered complied, with a well-flavored broth and chunks of surimi, fish, pork, tripe, quail eggs, beef, chicken and probably a dozen other things I’m leaving out. It also came with my favorite big, fat rice noodles, beautifully translucent and looking like tentacles in the soup.

It was very nicely prepared and, if it didn’t exactly transport me to raving ecstasy, was quite good. I managed about a third before giving up and asking for a doggie bag. We reheated the rest for dinner and it was almost as good the second time around.

We didn’t try the beef dishes, the vermicelli stuff, the eggrolls or any of dozens of other tasty-looking treats. Sigh. I guess we’ll just have to go back again. 

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