Pho 126 — Restaurant in Sydney

Very excited to see a new Viet resturant in Hurstville, unfortunately left expecting more. Wife and I went at 5:30pm - Wednesday night, we ordered 2 pho (1 medium, 1 large) and spring rolls.

The good: springs rolls were crunchy and yummy, not much to fault, the pho was tasty- soup base is full of flavour and we werent super thirsty afterwards so it would indicated a pretty clean broth. It's a new resturant, so everything looks clean.

The bad: our pho was served "warm", in this cold weather I think most diners would appreciate a piping hot bowl of soup. The soup wasn't even hot enough to cook the rare beef enough to chew through..The difference between the medium and large size is not really noticeable apart from the size of the bowl, it's $2 difference so I wasn't expecting much.

Concerns: The sauces, cutlery, hot tea/water etc is split into 2 main communial tables. For hygiene purposes I would personally have preferred for these to be available at each individual table. The first table next to us for some reason received some free treats/food - this wasn't offered to us or any other diners from what we could see. I saw one of the watresses handling a plate of bean sprouts with her bare hands and re arranging them - what we dont see we dont know and this probably occurs in every resturant behind the sight of the customer, but once its visbile to the customer it is a bit of a turn off.

The waiters dont seem to be communicating cohesively, I could observe other tables had things forgotten and felt a little harrassed to order. Within maybe 1 mins of sitting down the waitress is hovering ready to take your order already.

The restaurant has the potential to do really well, few teething issues. Price point is about right for the area. But was there any...

First Visit:

Was excited to see a new Pho place in Hurstville because Miss Saigon is rubbish as is the one in the pub where the owner has an attitude. Before this place, Madam Pho was the best in Hurstville.

The size and quality of ingredients in the pho was very good but the soup was way too herbal for my liking to the point it was very dark. Not sure if this is a northern Vietnamese version and apologies if it is as I am use to the cleaner flavours of most Pho restaurants.

If the soup was tamed down a bit, I would be here every week and the lady boss was a very friendly and humble.

2nd Visit: 11/9

Ordered their special, the Bun Bo Hue and at $19 it tasted like BBH but that was about it. I cannot believe how stingy they were with the noodles. There simply wasn't enough and the pork trotter was tough and chewy. For $19, you are up against the best in Cabra so I was very disappointed.

The Com Tam (Broken rice with pork chop) was by far the worst version I have ever had (sorry to say). The rice was mushy, the egg was overcooked (no runny yolk), the pork chop looked like it had been re-heated and was tough and flavourless, there was no pork skin. and the other condiments looked tired. To top it off the nước mắm was like water and sugar with no resemblance of the real thing. There was literally no redeeming qualities with this dish and if the owner was not as friendly, I would not have paid for this.

I do not think the chef really cares at this place.

Sorry to say but I won't be...

Went to have lunch there as it was recommended to us as one of the best pho place in Hurstville but it turns out to be the worst.

We’ve ordered a large pho with rare beef and beef ball, a kid size pho (comes with brisket instead of rare beef), a grilled pork chop with rice and a spring roll.

They do not put hoisin sauce on the table, this was the first indication it wouldn’t be a good place. We had to ask for hoisin sauce and then they bring you a small amount, very stingy in my opinion for not having it on every table.

Pho soup was very clear and tasted quite a bit of msg in it. The beef brisket in the kid’s pho wasn’t nice at all and would have preferred to have the rare beef instead.

At saigon you can have extra noodle in pho soup for $4 but here the kid’s pho was about $11 and it is same size as the extra noodle at saigon.

They do not give mint leaves or basil leaves for the pho, just the lemon and beansprout. The spring roll you only get 3 spring rolls and the dipping sauce is hot.

They forgot to make the grilled pork chop, by the time i got the pork chop my kid and husband already finished their food.

Pork chop wasn’t nice either, didn’t look like grilled more pan fry, not much taste to it. Rice seems to have been reheated in the microwave as after 1 mins it started getting chewing and hard.

As we were leaving we had a look at the other table and most of them didn’t...