Pho Phu Thinh

It's been ages since the last time I've had Vietnamese noodles. If you really think about it, you're paying a good seven dollars for something worth a third of that. I've never been quite fond of Vietnamese noodles because often the soup base lacks flavour so I end up eating way too much hoisin sauce. Anyways, my best friend's family frequently goes to eat Vietnamese cuisine and we got together for lunch on a Saturday afternoon.

Pho Phu Thinh is a considerably new restaurant in Coquitlam, opening it's doors just a few years back. I've visited here once about a year ago but only tried their Combo Bean drink. And that was terrible. The worst 三色冰 I've ever tried. It is literally a tall glass of over-sweetened syrupped beans. Even with a sweet tooth like mine, it was like pure glucose. Don't ever order it here. I didn't listen to Az's advice and had to learn the hard way.

Thankfully, their other items are much more edible than the bean drink. Let's begin with appetizers!

5 Piece Chicken Wings and 2 Piece Prawn Salad Roll

A while ago, one of my mom's friends brought some of Pho Phu Thinh's chicken wings to our house for a potluck. The crispy wings come with a dry seasoning to dip in. That seasoning is ah-may-zing. I know it's probably MSG, making it quite addicting. When eaten in the restaurant, the wings are served hot from the fryer and best eaten then. The wings are a reasonably large size and well made. Five wings cost a little less than $4. There is also a 10 piece chicken wing order.

Just because my eyes can be slightly bigger than my stomach, I ordered the prawn salad rolls (number 2 on the menu). Two rolls cost more than $4, which is over priced for what goes into making these, but I appreciate some simple flavours in my meal. The downside is the filling to vermicelli ratio. I understand that it is the noodles that give it structure but more prawn and a larger variety of vegetable would be nice. Each piece of prawn you see in the photo is actually half a prawn split lengthwise. So in one roll there is only two prawn. I mean, how expensive can prawns be? On the 'belly' of each roll is a slice of Vietnamese ham. Such a small addition I thought it was sauce. The best part is the peanut sauce, with the roasted peanut bits. Blame my biasness towards anything with nuts, but it's so delicious! Overall, the chewiness of the roll with the strong sauce makes for a very tasty bite! If it weren't so expensive, I could see myself eating a few of these as a meal.

Pho Bo Hue

At every pho restaurant, my family will always order the Pho Bo Hue. It is number 27 on this restaurant's menu, pho noodles with a spicy soup base. We ordered one large to share among my family of 4 (don't worry, we had other food to eat too!). Since this is under the 'specialty' noodle section, a large costs about $8. Once this bowl of noodles got to our table, the first thing my dad asked was "Where's the pork hock?" as we are used to seeing it served in Pho Bo Hue. I suppose every restaurant makes it slightly differently. We will not be ordering this again at this restaurant as the soup base is very weak and almost bland. Even by looking at the colour, the lack of red shows the lack of spiciness. A thumbs down for their Bo Hue soup base. On a more positive note, their noodle portion is reasonable.

Grilled Lemon Grass Pork with Spring Roll on Vermicelli

The summer heat is starting to get to me, and I was not in the mood to slurp up hot noodles. So, I ordered this cold vermicelli dish, number 29 I think... The vermicelli noodles here are not exactly cold, but they definitely are not hot. Just warm from being cooked. With a generous dunking of the fish sauce (peeking out from the bottom right corner), this was a very well made dish. Even though it cost almost $10, I felt okay paying that price for such a large serving of actually delicious food. To begin, there are plenty of refreshing chopped cucumber, iceberg lettuce, and carrots to break up the saltiness of the fish sauce. The pork was tender and well marinated, not too salty or greasy. I believe the little fried bits in the centre are onions. It's a nice touch~ The one item I can't speak for is the spring roll. But I bet it's store bought anyways. Az's grandparents each ordered a bowl of cold vermicelli and I think it is their usual order, which means it must be good! I would recommend this dish for those who don't want to eat hot noodles.

Regarding the service, it varies even through one meal. Pho noodles are served very quickly, same with the chicken wings. But the prawn salad roll and cold vermicelli came much later during the meal. Since the prawn salad roll is an appetizer, shouldn't it come out before the noodles? It doesn't need to be cooked either so I don't know why it took so long. We had to remind them we had an order of the prawn rolls and our waitress replied "It's on its way". Just as an extra note from my visit a year ago, I ordered a Bahn Mi (Vietnamese sandwich) for my meal and I am not kidding you, both my brother and Az were finished eating their noodles and my sandwich had still yet to be served. I reminded them at least thrice and it took over an hour to get to our table. That, is not acceptable. All they had to do is put the cooked pork (same pork on the cold vermicelli in the photo above) into some bread and add a few raw toppings. -shakes head in despair- 

The way the waitresses take our order slightly amuses me. When placing our order, the waitress just stands there and listens, nodding her head as we tell her what we want. No pen and paper needed. Now, I know some people have amazing memory and some long-time waitresses can do their job very well without the use of pen and paper. Sometimes mistakes still happen when pen and paper are used. However not writing things down provides more opportunities for miscommunication and mistakes to occur. What if the waitress just happens to have a tiring day and remembers your order incorrectly? You may be missing an order or get the wrong one. This didn't happen to us but I can see it being a potential.

In conclusion, I wouldn't specifically recommend this Vietnamese restaurant to my friends and family but that doesn't mean Pho Phu Thinh is a bad restaurant. It's just there are numerous other Vietnamese restaurants in the vicinity that have a more consistent quality.



Love from Coconut Crumpet's Corner ♡