For a very long time I've thought that the Viet food in Los Angeles was lacking. There are places like Golden Deli (my sister is a regular) and Mr. Baguette for banh mi sandwiches. But pho noodle soup restaurants -- which in recent years have spread to Koreatown, hipster Silverlake and even to sterile West Los Angeles -- has never been great in Los Angeles. Dull broth, over cooked noodles make you want to squirt a mess of Sriracha or lime juice into the bowl to cover up the various culinary transgressions. But the days of bad pho may be numbered.
Jonathan Gold, the Pulitzer-prize-winning food journalist of the LA Weekly (I date myself by asking if any of you recall Gold's fantastic "Counter Intelligence" column in the LA Times?), just wrote about a bevy of new pho joints in El Monte. For those of you who don't know where that is, it's on the outskirts of the Asian epicenter of the San Gabriel Valley, which is east of downtown Los Angeles. Vietnamese business people always know to set up shop and compete where rents are low and diners are hungry. It's not chic nor pretty, it's El Monte.
If you live in Los Angeles, head east on the 10 freeway to Garvey Avenue after you read this piece:
- Pho Town: Noodle Stories From South El Monte (LA Weekly, 12/11/08)
Also, check out Anne Fishbein's slideshow of pho bowls. Note the metal bowl that some of the pho is served in. That's new . . . What gives?
Cam says
I created a little dining guide for Vietnamese restaurants in Orange County here:
http://oceat.wordpress.com/
Annie says
Aren't the metal bowls used in Korean restaurants?
I've been wondering about that - the fusion of Korean and Vietnamese cuisines down in SoCal. Has anyone written about this?
Wandering Chopsticks says
The metal bowl is for the pho Bac filet mignon at Pho Huynh. It's filet mignon meat but minced so the meat is very tender, but still quite thick. I think the metal helps it cook the meat better. Or maybe to distinguish between the non-pho Bac filet bowls. This is one of my favorite pho shops. I blogged about it earlier this year.
The whole stretch of Garvey in El Monte is an eclectic mix of Chinese, Latino, and Vietnamese businesses side by side and not grouped together in clusters. A few blocks
Simon Bao says
Andrea, if someone wants to have a Pho Slideshow, it has to include the following:
Pho Shizzle 1
What the Pho
and The Classic & Regrettable Pho King
Michelle E. says
Yay - Garvey is around the corner from my office - which means next time you come here, maybe we should have lunch at one (or many) of the locations mentioned in the story. I've had some pretty good pho since I've been at this office, although my colleagues and I have been not so good about remembering the names of the places we like.
Andrea Nguyen says
Ugh -- Michelle -- you're the one I was thinking of with Mr. Baguette!
Cam, thanks for the link on OCEats!
Wandering Chopsticks -- you've got my juices going. I was on Garvey last year during Thanksgiving but I was looking for dumplings. Now I'll look for pho. It's a funny stretch of the road because there's a slight no-man's land quality about it and then these little funky strip malls -- nothing fancy like west of there. Okay, next week I'm in LA so we'll be heading to El Monte for a bowl or t
j gold says
Hi Andrea: It's thrilling to be mentioned on your wonderful blog.
I'm not the expert you are, but I would say that the filet in pho bac, at least the way it's served at Pho Filet, is not so much better than the meat in regular pho - pho without tendon is like a day without sunshine - than it is different, with an attractively bloody taste and a fleshy mouthfeel. Those are, oddly enough, the characteristics that lead me to prefer almost every other cut of meat when it comes to eating a steak. But
Andrea Nguyen says
Jonathan, talk about thrills. Thanks for your insights on the filet in the pho. I've been a long-time fan of your work so the pleasure is more mine than yours.
A friend of mine, Eric Banh of Monsoon restaurant in Seattle has been serving filet pho for a while and I've questioned the use of filet. Like you, I tend toward more flavorful cuts and am a tri-tip, New York, T-bone kind of gal. But pairing the gingery broth with the filet pushes it nearly to the realm of Viet beef carpaccio -- thit bo t
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patrick jones says
I think jg should stick with mazza ball soup. Criticism !
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