Pho Nga Son — Restaurant in Richmond Hill

Another NEW Vietnamese star added to the neighborhood Pho list….and this one could be the brightest and best?!

In the recent past, whenever I wanted a good Vietnamese Pho fix, there were less than a handful of acceptable good ones around my neighborhood to choose from. The most reliable, authentic and prominent ones being Pho Tai Bac, Nam, Little Saigon, Q1 Le Pho, Xe Lua…..plus a couple of pseudo-authentic, Chinese run outfits like Green LemonGrass and Saigon Star.

However, during the past year or two, a sudden prolific growth had brought at least half a dozen more commendable new faces to the mix. These include, Dear Saigon, Ngon Corner, Luna Viet, Pho Le, Pho Anh Vu, Pho Vinh, Pho Time….etc. All have high Google review ratings and almost all claim to offer the most authentic and best products. Now, within a short 10 minutes drive from home, I see more Vietnamese/Pho restaurants than Hamburger, Pizzas and Fried Chicken fast food joints combined!! Go figure?!!

Today, upon returning from a heavy bout of West coast / Chinese food in Vancouver, I decided to have something different for dinner and together with my kids, gave this, ANOTHER newly opened Vietnamese eatery a try. At the same time, to see for myself, whether some recently posted rave reviews, claiming this could be the BEST Vietnamese Pho place in Richmond Hill is true or not?!

Well, the credibility and correctness of those reviews were actually not too far off. The dishes we ordered were indeed extremely well done and flavourful. The broth of the Pho, exemplary, the toppings and condiments spot-on. The assorted grilled meats for our Banh Hoi wap platter were well seasoned, smoky, tender and perfectly charred. Spring rolls, using authentic Viet-style wrappers and traditional taro fillings were one of the better ones. The only slight down side was my Bun Rieu Crab soup noodle, a bit under seasoned and lacking complexity,. The one I had at Pho Metro years ago was still the best and my reference yard stick.

For me, amongst the current nearly 20 Vietnamese eateries in and around my neighborhood, I would place Pho Le and now, Nga Son as my top two best and favorites. Sorry, Pho Tai Bac, your previous top spot has...

So this place is now called Pho Nga Son (used to be The Art of Pho).

My friends and I checked this place out on a sat night after badminton, so we were all pretty hungry. This was a relatively new spot in richmond hill that we had not tried yet so we decided to give it a shot.

The auntie who served us was incredibly nice and helpful with the menu.

Pork & prawn spring rolls: Very standard from what you would get as an app at most viet places.

Fish sauce chicken wings: The wings were fried well and the wings had a good amount of meat on them. My friends and I struggled to taste any fish sauce though. These tasted like regular deep fried wings with nothing on em haha.

Grilled pork banh mi: One of my friends ordered this. It certainly looked promising and my friend confirmed that it was really tasty and there were no unedible chewy pieces of meat running throughout. They also gave her a pretty generous amount of pork and the sandwich must've been at last 8-9 inches? (which is pretty big for a banh mi).

At the auntie's recommendation, I decided to try the hot stone bowl pho w/ angus tenderloin and oxtail (SP1). Call me skeptical at first because the auntie told me that it was huge and could easily feed 2 ppl.

The pho arrived on a tray and I've gotta say, there's actually a lot of meat. You get your noodles in the stone bowl w/ the tenderloin and oxtail and then on the SIDE you get a plate of flank steak that you slide in to the sizzling bowl. Fair play to her, while it was not a 2-person portion like she claimed, I DID feel satisfied afterwards so it's a decent portion for 1 person imo (if you've got a big appetite).

Extremely surprised to see such poor reviews on Yelp for this resto. The service was great and the food was great too. The only area/category I could see a drop in ratings is the price because they're definitely more expensive than their competition (Pho Tai Bac, Dear...

Visited Friday, November 5 at 7PM for Dine-In

We forgot to take a picture of our food because we were all SO HUNGRY haha

But this hit the spot for me. Pho and Vermicelli noodles.

I ordered the Lemongrass Pork with Vermicelli Noodles. We also had a Beef with Noodles and two orders of Pho.

The portions were good and everything tasted amazing. Maybe I have a small stomach but the Small bowl of Pho would be enough for me. Lots of veggies with their vermicelli noodles - I'll probably ask for no bean sprouts and more noodles next time lol Good portion of radish and carrots, greens and cucumber, noodles, a spring roll cut in three, and deliciously seasoned meat.

The Service was amazing. The staff were so attentive and kind.

It's not a HUGE place but definitely a good place for a more relaxed and quick bite to eat.

The owner came to check on us and he was very kind and funny. Apparently there wasn't enough meat in two of our dishes so he brought out some more. Or maybe he thought we were too skinny and needed us to eat more hahaha

Our friend ordered the Avocado Smoothie which she said was delicious but needed time to melt before drinking. Another friend tried the Vietnamese Lemonade which was like a lemon/limeaid which was also very cold and refreshing.

And we also tried the Small Brown Sugar Mill Tea. It was surprisingly quite good. Refreshing and not super overly sweet. It was actually the perfect balance. (All their bubble teas are milk tea - maybe next time I'll try the Mango) But if bubble tea isn't your thing they do have a very extensive menu on the LED board or takeout menu.

My one tiny criticism is their take out menu is a bit too small and quite hard to read. But that is an easy fix.

The restaurant is clean. Food is fresh. Service is fast.

If you're in the area and are looking for comforting Vietnamese food you should try...