Pho 88
270 Spadina Ave
Phone: Not available
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The last time I did a Chinatown eatery post, I spoke highly of the cheap and yummy pho noodle dishes served up at Pho Hung.
You all suggested I hit up Pho 88 for even more noodle goodness. And so, a couple friends and I did just that, and this became a Pho series. The verdict? 88 was mostly a hit, but a little bit o' miss too.
Once we sat down with our menus, no one was in the mood for broth, so we tried out 1) "broken rice" & pork , 2) a vegetarian rice noodle with tofu, and 3) some vermicelli noodles with pork strips & spring rolls.
A thumbs up from for dish #1 which I didn't even get to photograph, it was devoured so quickly.
#2 was mine, and while slightly oily, was actually pretty nice and fresh tasting. The flat rice noodles were cooked perfectly (pictured above).
And over behind door #3, the owner of this dish was heard mumbling, "pork strips? this is freakin bacon. they could have written 'bacon'.. lots of crusty bacon."
While, yes, bacon is pork, she was not pleased with unexpected cut, so we stopped elsewhere for a dessert of discounted easter chocolates.
Pho 88 - 270 Spadina (a couple windows south of Dundas).
The Pho series will continue: Next time we'll head over to "Pho 66" at St. Clair & Old Weston to see what the slightly more satanic, and less Heil-Hitlerish, numbers might mean for the food.
Comments (8)
For some good Vietnamese food you may want to hit Ossington between Dundas & Queen, or College west of Dufferin.
It's so funny, I inadvertently ended up there last night for a quick chow. As soon as I saw the name on the menu though, I knew I'd read about it here.
Pretty cool.
Question: I got into a tiff with the boy about whether it's pronounced "Poe" or "Foe". Which is it? I know in Thai, the "ph" is always pronounced with the h silent, so just as the regular English "p".
The correct pronunciation is actually 'fuh'... atleast that's what they call it in Vietnam...
I got pretty good at ordering 'pho bo' & 'bia hoi'
(beef pho & home-brewed beer)
I love this place :)
The place looks great, quite a big selection of food, and the waiters & waitresses are very nice.
I've had the experience of trying to eat here once and that was enough to give me reason to never go back and have horrid things to say about this place.
Living in the area I figured it would be might be worth it to check out with my girlfriend one night and we both couldn't even make a dent in either of our meals.
There was so much corn starch (or some kind of starch) in the sauces, both of our meals tasted the same, both bland and gray. I couldn't believe the lack of service in a near empty restaurant. Not once did someone ask us if our meal was alright (maybe they knew?) nor did our drinks get replenished. it took us close to 20 minutes to get the attention of our server to bring us the bill, which was cheap-ish - but not at all worth it as we couldn't bring ourselves to swallow this "food".
There are far, far better places to eat along Spadina.
I can't disagree more with the comment above. I really did enjoy the food there. I had the sate soup and my girlfriend had the glass noodle with chicken. we both had fruit shakes which where surprisingly made of real fruit and not that powder the 168 uses. I had no problem with the service. The Price was the best part of it. Nice place, good food, cheap prices. I don't know what the person above was expecting for 20.00 but it was worth it for me.
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