My wife and I stopped in this small Vietnamese joint for a quick lunch. I had the turmeric noodles with pork and shrimp, and she had the special pho.
Both were decent, but not at the level of our favorites. It did hit the spot though.
HIGH LUA
182 S 2nd Street
Brooklyn New York, NY 11211
This new Vietnamese joint specializes in hot pot, but their regular menu items are pretty great too.
We tried the pork jowls, the baby clams, and the beef pho. All were awesome, and I think the pho here is my favorite of all time. Also huge props to the wagyu betel leaf wraps. I really loved those as well.
The hot pot we ordered was a mix of seafood and beef. I felt the broth was a bit too sweet, but over all it was very good.
MOC MAC
79 2nd Avenue
New York, NY 10003
If you’re in LIC and looking for Vietnamese food, one option you have is Cyclo.
I stopped in here with a few of my ebike friends for a bowl of pho and some other snacks.
The quail egg fried wontons were unique. I would skip on the sweet chili sauce.
The beef skewers were a bit better, in my oopinion.
The clay pot beef stew wasn’t hot enough to crisp up the rice on the bottom of the serving vessel (which wasn’t really hot), but it was tasty and came with a side of veg.
The pho was pretty good. This is on par with some of the basic Chinatown spots near me. This runs you $18, and it came with sliced eye round and brisket.
CYCLO
5-51 47th Ave #573
Long Island City, NY 11101
First, check out my Ride & Review video HERE:
It is seriously tough to get a table at this new Vietnamese place, but luckily my wife is a rock star and made it happen for us. All of the sandwiches here are great, and the traditional banh mi here is the best I’ve ever had. But the simple and small pate with pork floss is magical. The bread they make in house here is insane!
We tried a few soups and a porridge. My favorites were the pho dac biet and the rice porridge with offal meats. So much rich flavor there.
The rice roll tower and steamed rice cups were sort of redundant, but the tower is the way to go because it comes with a whole shitload of things to put on it before rolling up and chowing down.
The steak and egg breakfast style dish had a bit of sweetness that was really warming and comforting. And their house hot sauce should be jarred and sold at high volume. It is incredible!
The iced coffee and coffee flan were both great too, but I was so full from everything else that I couldn’t eat much of the flan.
This place definitely deserves all the hype it’s getting. All of the staple items here are amazing, and they also offer some dishes that are much harder to find at most of the other Vietnamese places around town.
BANH ANH EM
99 3rd Avenue
New York, NY, 10003
First, check out my Ride & Review HERE:
My wife and I tried four items here. We would have tried more, but a few things were not yet available (they just opened).
The pork belly was thinly sliced and really delicious. The rice quality here is top notch as well.
I really enjoyed the egg rolls as well.
We tried two soups: the chicken pho and beef pho.
Both were good. My wife preferred the beef over the chicken, and I was the reverse.
My wife makes both better at home, but this place is good for the price, I think it’s better than a lot of the other spots in Chinatown in the same price range. We will definitely be back to try more items when they are fully rolling.
PHO GA VANG
30 Market St.
New York, NY 10002
After two previous visits to New Orleans I was dead-set on finally trying some Vietnamese food. This town has a large Vietnamese community, so I know the food will be good.
My wife and I picked this joint because it was the closest to our hotel that was actually open on New Year’s Day. It had nice ratings to boot. We started with a pair of Vietnamese drip coffees, which were excellent.
Next, we shared a banh mi sandwich – their signature “dac biet” special sandwich.
This was great. Just the right amount of filling, nice fresh French bread that didn’t rip my mouth apart from being too hard or crispy.
Then we had some soup. I had the large “dac biet” special bowl of beef pho. This was great for the price tag. It easily surpassed most of the pho I have access to here in NYC (obviously there are some big exceptions since NYC is finally getting some good Vietnamese food).
My wife had the bun bo hue, which I thought was a bit too pungent and overly fishy for my taste, but it was still good as far as this dish goes. Especially impressive were the noodles. The round, “thick spaghetti” style rice noodles typically used in this soup will often get overcooked and become mushy. Then they break easily when you grab them with chopsticks, which is a pain in the ass. But these were perfect.
Give this place a shot when you’re down here.
PHO TAU BAY
1565 Tulane Ave
New Orleans, LA 70112
After reading some positive reviews of this Northern style Vietnamese pho restaurant, my wife and I rushed in to try it just as soon as we had some free time.
Contrary to the name of the restaurant, they DO serve more than just pho. They also serve some spring rolls. We tried pork and crab. Both were great. Light, crispy, not too greasy, and big on flavor.
They also serve fresh coconut juice.
We ordered two different bowls of soup; combination beef, and chicken with an added poached egg. Both size medium.
My favorite of the two was the beef.
It had a nice deep beefy flavor from their 15-hour broth making process, and it was chock full of rare, thinly-sliced eye round and brisket.
The noodles were cooked perfectly and had a nice snap and bite to them – unlike so many joints downtown that overcook them into a mush that falls apart as soon as you grasp them with your chopsticks.
While the beef was my favorite, I can see myself getting this velvety, eggy chicken pho on cold winter days. Check out this video as the egg yolk gets mixed in:
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I highly recommend this spot. Go give it a shot.
JUST PHO
252 W 31st St
New York, NY 10001
This spot just took over the Char House location, which was an asian steakhouse (there’s another location by Washington Square Park too). The concept here is customizable bowls of pho with tableside boilers. You can even choose how rich your broth is, like some ramen joints offer; 8hrs, 16hrs, etc. My wife and I skipped that gimmicky stuff and went with some regular menu items instead.
For starters, we tried (1) the chili and tamarind sauce chicken wings; (2) the spicy chili oil pork knuckles; and (3) the spring rolls.
All three were great. The spring rolls were pretty standard in style and format (wrap them in lettuce with herbs and veg, then dip into fish sauce). The wings were delicious and crisp, with fried shallots on top. The pig knuckles were the stars of the starters though. Fork tender, jiggly, juicy, flavorful and spicy. I loved them. They reminded me of oxtail or braised chuck stew meat.
I had the surf and turf pho, which is beef broth with a half lobster and a nice big short rib on the bone. This is hefty at $25 for a bowl, but it really satisfies. Great broth and both the lobster and the short rib were perfect.
My wife had the bun bo hue, a spicy lemongrass pork and beef soup. It was delicious, and contained a ton of different meats within.
All in, this was $85 including tax and tip. High, but very tasty.
PHOBAR
43 Mott Street
New York, NY 10013
Sai Gon Dep is a new pho-focused casual joint by acclaimed former Hanoi House chef John Nguyen. He’s a master at making pho – the best I’ve had outside of Vietnam.
While Hanoi House is focused on northern style beef soup, Sai Gon Dep focuses on southern style chicken soup from the region where John was born.
Although beef soup is still served here (as well as full-on 45-day dry-aged tomahawk chops, available only on weekends – 8/10) and other protein entrees are available on the menu, the main focus is on fowl.
They even have balut, for those looking for either an authentic or Zimmern-esque experience.
At $15 a bowl, these soups are a steal. The rich, hearty poultry flavor is like nothing else I’ve had. Not even the most rich paitan broths come close, and this soup eats much lighter than those salty sweat-bomb bowls at ramen shops.
While the noodles here come with shredded meat and an egg yolk in the broth, you can order a half or whole chicken to go with it.
Pull some meat off the bones and drag it through the ginger chicken fat oil and scallion sauce that accompany the dish, and munch away at the delicious bird between slurps of noodles… or just plop it into your soup.
Honestly, the broth alone is so soul-satisfying and delicious that you might not even need the additional meat. But if you do order the extra chicken, don’t be alarmed: you may get a plate of feet and heads along with your order. Nothing goes to waste here, just like where John was born in Vietnam. The entire bird is used, and that’s why the soup tastes so fucking great.
Keep an eye out. This place opens next week. I was there for a special media preview, and I can’t wait to start eating this more regularly. The chicken pho is a top dish of the year for me.
SAI GON DEP
719 Second Ave
New York, NY 10016
The owner of Em, Patrick Lin, invited me in to try some of their awesome noodle dishes and sandwich creations. I was really excited about this menu.
We started with some smoothies: the classic avocado, and the watermelon. Both were really refreshing and delicious. HOLY SHIT SOMEONE ARREST THEM BECAUSE THE STRAWS ARE PLASTIC!
Then we moved right on to the sandwiches.
The first one I hit was this bacon egg and cheese banh mi sandwich:
This is perfect. It has all the familiar flavors of banh mi, but with bacon, egg and cheese to go with it. That’s a winning combo. I could eat this every day, so this was well worth the hour-long subway ride out here to Bensonhurst.
Next up was the banh bi burger.
This is actually the one “burger” that I would almost prefer to be served without cheese. This one has provolone, but I didn’t think it was necessary (clearly some might love it though). The bright, fresh herbs and acidic pickled slaw are really all you need, except for a sauce or mayo. This, too, was really tasty – cheese or no cheese.
Next, we moved on to the soups.
Hu Tieu is a pork based broth with pork rib, ground pork, and a mix of seafood (shrimp, fish balls, etc). This was light and flavorful. My wife liked this one the best out of the two.
The pho here is really nice. The broth is flavorful but not heavy, and the addition of short rib really turns this into a satisfying meal. There’s lots of brisket, eye round and meatballs in there, yet this still manages to stay light. This was my pick between the two.
For dessert, we had Vietnamese coffee tiramisu. This was super creamy and fluffy, and the coffee flavors came through nicely.
I’ll definitely be back here again to eat my way through the rest of the menu. And the good thing is that this place was packed on a Sunday for lunch. People are really digging this place, and so am I.
EM
1702 86th St
Brooklyn, NY 11214
