Pho Viet — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

We arrived to Edinburgh on a cold rainy day. Nothing could beat a hot bowl of Pho. Plus I didn’t feel like going out for dinner, so I browsed for Viet restaurants on UberEats. Pho Viet was the first restaurant popped up. I was very hangry at the time, so I didn’t bother to look at reviews on Yelp or Google reviews before placed my order. For main dishes, we ordered Pho Bo, Bun Bo Hue, Com Suon Nuong, and Bun Thit Nuong. For drinks/desserts, we got the Thai Tea, Vietnamese iced coffee, and Vietnamese Rainbow Drink ( Che Ba Mau). Our food was delivered 40 minutes later. When I opened the Pho container, it smelled so so good. Unfortunately, the broth wasn’t really hot as I normally wanted. I understood that I shouldn’t have expected too much because the Uber guy delivered food for us on a bicycle in this freezing cold weather. I was lazy to heat up the broth so I just ate like that.The broth was delicious even though it wasn’t smoking hot. I thought I had a good Pho bowl in London, but I was wrong. Pho Bo at Pho Viet restaurant was the bomb!!! I was born and raised in Vietnam so I set a pretty high bar for Viet food. In my opinion, the taste of Pho Bo here was authentic. The meat was tender and flavorful. It came with a lot of herbs and veggies. I was really surprised/happy that I could eat a very good Pho bowl in Scotland. The Bun Bo Hue broth was the same as Pho broth, except the noodle was Bun Bo Hue kind, and it came with a scoop of shrimp chili oil paste ( sa te tom). I would say it wasn’t cooked traditionally but it was still good. Basically, it was a Spicy version of Pho Bo lol I loved the taste of the meat in Com Tam Thit Nuong and Bun Thit Nuong. For these 2 dishes, the portions were kinda small compared to the price. Both Vietnamese iced coffee and Thai tea was good 10/10. The Che Ba Mau was alright, nothing special. You can skip this dessert but definitely get the Viet coffee or Thai milk tea. Overall, I loved the food here. They have a very good menu. It was a bit pricey but an average meal in Scotland costs between £15-20 per person so it seemed standard here. I would suggest to skip the starters and get the entrée for a better deal. Pho Viet is a nice change of pace from Scottish food....

Reasonable food, decent service. First Pho in Edinburgh - being from Vancouver BC I'm extremely spoiled with some of the best Pho outside of Saigon - so this was a bit underwhelming. The Pho broth is not a long-cooked beef broth, relying too much on seasoning and spices for flavour - so it's weak with little beef flavour. It has an odd balance of spices (too much cinnamon, and ginger - raw onion). The ginger and onions need more charring and time in the broth. The only accompanying items are tiny bit of bean sprouts and mint leaves (where I'm from you usually get a heaping plate of bean sprouts, Rau que (basil), ngo Gai (sawtooth herb), chillis, and lime, etc.). Meat content was small for what you pay. So not a great Pho, but tasty soup nonetheless. Banh Xeo was also underwhelming - good batter that was crispy and good, but no mung beans, and large chunks of onion that gave the whole thing a Chinese stir fry vibe, rather than banh xao. They only provided two pieces of lettuce, so you couldn't eat in the traditional way breaking off hunks and making tasty wraps with the lettuce. No herbs were offered, and banh xao needs a variety of herbs to really be authentic. I asked for more lettuce to wrap the banh xao, and they came back with a tiny plate of lettuce shreds., So even the staff doesn't really understand or know real Viet food. Mixed grill plate was decent, though sweeter with less lemongrass flavour than I'd expect. Overall, a decent meal, but authentic Viet food?...

It is such a shame as this place would do so well, but service and food was probably the worst meal I have had this year. August festival time and there was only twos couple here including us sitting here late afternoon, no other diners.

I had a prawn pho.

She came back in 3/4 minutes. Super fast! Like super fast!

My prawn pho had about 5 prawns in it, soup base was somewhat favour-ok but totally lacked any depth. Frozen prawns most likely, flat noodles pre made, soup microwaved. Soup base felt like supermarket shop bought with no real essence in it. I totally did not enjoy eating this one bit.

Astonished at the Price of ONE dish - 5 prawns, flat noodles, one slice of chilli, and a whole bowl of soup (partner described it as bath water) was £11.50!

Outrageously over priced, service was poor even though there was only 2 tables in this place. I was SO UNIMPRESSED. Sorry, I won't...