I’m all for long, leisurely lunches that span several courses and hours, but more often than not, a simpler lunch totally hits the spot. Just last week, I had a wonderful lunch at Pho Bang (over here on the Westbank Expressway, of course) with a new friend, and I can’t stop thinking about going back.
Believe it or not, it’s been chilly down here in the deep South, with lows dropping into the mid 30s, so a huge, hot bowl of soup was felicitous on that dreary day. Pho Bang had long been on my radar (thank you, Lorin!), and with the lunch I had, it’s no wonder they’ve been in business for 30 years, and offer five different locations around the GNO.
Keeping it simple, we shared an order of chả giò (fried pork spring rolls), and my entrée was a “small” bowl of pho tai with thin slices of rare eye of round. My DC had a lemongrass shrimp vermicelli bowl. The soup was hot, aromatic (but not overly so), and the supposedly small size was plenty big enough for me. It’s a little difficult to make a definitive decision without a side-by-side comparison, but I think Pho Bang’s egg rolls just might be my new favorite, super crispy, not greasy and stuffed with ground pork, shrimp and mushrooms and served with plenty fish sauce (I think I could live off that stuff!). It was an hour filled with great food (at a great price) and great conversation. I can’t wait to go back.
