Pho Tay Ho — Restaurant in Montreal

Showed up at around 3:30PM, reception by owner, and staff was quite poor. Sort of barely greeted us and quickly moved us to a table. We sort of brushed it off, thinking the food was probably going to compensate for the lack of personable service. It did not.

To put it plainly, in our experience the food was mediocre at best. I ordered the Pho soup with chicken and beef. It was pretty bland, not much flavour to speak of, there was quite a generous portion of chicken, but almost no beef. It tasted fine, but overall i thought it would have more taste, I found it to be almost like a really bland chicken soup, maybe thats accurate to how its supposed to taste?

My mother ordered the vermicelli bbq with beef. It was quite good, however, again very little shaving slivers of beef for her dish, almost no meat.

For the price i dont find it as generous as the other reviewers say. Id say its OK for the price, could use some more protein though.

Ordered the fried banana for dessert, $5, quite expensive for a banana cut into two. Came with a little container of "hotel-style" syrup that you would get with your pancakes if you were to go to a buffet.

Afterwards had a lot of indigestion and acid reflux from the meal. Sort of makes me question the quality of what im eating.

Overall would not go there again, I did not find it worth the long trip and price (which totaled about $65 for two soups and banana for dessert).

In my opinion there are alot of asian restaurants in montreal that for that price would get a feast, with alot of food to take home as leftovers, and no Gastrointestinal issues afterwards. Just a word to the wise, dont buy into the "Emperor...

I had dinner here with a group of friends for dinner on a Wednesday night and I had an overall good experience. There was a short wait at the beginning to get a table since it was super busy, which was a good sign since this place seems to be rated pretty well from anyone I talk to.

The experience was overall great, but I was a bit disappointed by the XL Pho Dac Biet I ordered (which in my mind is the standard for any good Pho shop). The portion was massive and the noodle were cooked perfectly. The part that was slightly odd to me was the broth and assortment of meats. First, the broth tasted much lighter than any other Pho I've eaten with a almost chicken-stock flavour and less deep, rich, and umami than I'm used to. It also looked a bit cloudy and not as clear - perhaps the oil/fat wasn't as separated in the making the stock (this is just pure speculation). As for the meats, it seemed to be a random mishmash of meats thrown together and the presentation seemed a bit off. The meats were seemingly cut to different sizes and chunks (like cubes of flank instead of uniform thin cuts), I found a few pieces of chicken in my bowl, and the meat-to-noodle ratio was off (with less mea than noodle). On a positive note, the tendon was soft and it soaked up the broth flavour well.

I'll definitely give the Pho Dac Biet another shot, but I'll reserve my rating as a 4/5 star for now until I try it again. I'd rank Pho Lien, Pho Bang, and Pho Nam (super far away on St Michel)...

Really disappointed. This place used to be 5 star, but my most recent experience was far worse.

The service was slow and quite rude. After filling in their order sheet, it took 30+ minutes before they came to collect it. During this time, I tried flagging down the staff, but they kept telling me to wait and they’d be right there. I even went inside to find my server, and he told me quite brusquely to wait outside and he’d be there in a minute. Meanwhile, tables who arrived 20 minutes after us were being served.

I had the grilled chicken and rice with salad. The salad was about 80% bean sprouts. This is definitely NOT the way they’ve done salads in the past, and it was pretty terrible. The rice was also over cooked, which is insane for a viet place.

My father-In-law had chicken/beef mixed pho. There wasn’t any beef. My mother-in-law asked for cutlery which never came.

When we paid, we didn’t leave a good tip. The server took issue with this. We explained why, and he told us that it was busy and this was normal service. I’ve been here during busier times and the service was never this bad, which is exactly what I told our server. He told us if we don’t like their service, we shouldn’t come back. Up to this point I would have given them another chance, but this is where I have to draw the line. I’ll never go back to Pho Tay Ho.

It’s a shame, a few months ago I would have told you it was one of the best...