There has
not been much new as far as east Asian food is concerned in the restaurants of
Manchester over the last few years. However, here is one… I am Pho is the name
of the first ever Pho (Vietnamese Beef Soup Noodles) restaurant in Manchester. There
has always been a large Vietnamese community in Manchester, and I have always
wondered why a place like this has not sprung up sooner.
Anyway, I
have decided to give this place a try last month. It was located in Chinatown,
next to the strip club, so if you go in the evenings, don’t let the sight of
the burly bouncers put you off.
One word of
warning … do not park your car outside the strip club. The bouncers will lean
and sit on it. Because they look big and mean, they know no one will tell them
off and they don’t care that they annoy the car owners.
Once in the restaurant
you will notice that the layout was more like a café than a restaurant, but
that is fine, because it felt clean and comfortable. However, the prices were
not café prices. You could go to most Chinatown restaurants and order most
noodle dishes at around the same price… about the £7.50 mark.
On the table
is a range of good quality sauces and dips.
Of course, I
ordered the signature dish, beef pho -
with the beef rare, so that it is cooked in the soup. There were other
dishes on the menu but 80% of them were a variation of the pho soup noodles,
with a few rice dishes and the customary Vietnamese summer / spring rolls as
sides.
The verdict:
The soup was
light … very light. It tasted refreshing but lacked flavour, as if it was a
little bit too diluted or not enough beef was used in the stock.
The noodles
were fresh as opposed to the dry / reconstituted type, which is better than the
only other Pho in tried in Manchester, in a café in Ancoats.
The beef
were sliced thicker than I would have liked it, making it slightly tough. They
(the beef) somehow tasted rather detached from the soup .. hard to explain, but
you know the taste you get when you feel that the ingredients do not belong to
the dish because the taste is too different? Maybe this is because of the lack
of beefy taste in the soup.
The portion
was generous and adequate for most hungry diners. I would return if I needed
another pho fix, but not too often as I do not think this is good value. I
think under £5 would have been a fair price for this dish which does not
consist of any expensive ingredients.
