Pho Bowl — Restaurant in Cape Coral

This is a no-nonsense Vietnamese establishment that offers wonderfully authentic cuisine and, at least when I was there, excellent service.

Drinks include canned sodas, water, a small beer selection, and some outstanding bobas. I tried the soursop variety out of curiosity. It was delicious. I might get brave and hazard the durian next time...

They've got a pretty decent appetizer section. We enjoyed the spring roll and my mother had the shrimp egg roll. Don't be fooled by the egg roll, though. It was literally a large shrimp rolled in an egg roll wrapper and fried. It was tasty, but not what you'd expect from an egg roll.

I had the bun bo hue for dinner, which is a massive pho bowl with plenty of noodles, pork, beef, cartilage, and pork jelly. Many people are a bit put off by the cartilage and jelly, so you can request they not include them. Keep in mind that the jelly is condensed pig blood. I actually tried it out of curiosity and found it to be very subtle and to have a texture somewhat comparable to tofu, but it is a jelly, so not so spongy. I don't know that it came with rice noodles, though. The noodles had the same composition as standard spaghetti.

My wife had BÚN TÔM THỊT (hoặc GÀ) NƯỚNG CHẢ GIÒ. That translates to grilled shrimp noodles, by the way. It's probably her favorite Vietnamese dish. She loves the sauce that accompanies it and enjoyed the combination of flavors and textures. She emphasizes that the sauce really sets the flavors off.

My mother enjoyed the CƠM THỊT NƯỚNG TRỨNG CHIÊN. That appears to come across simply as rice cooked with eggs. It was a dish that came with a nicely fried pork chop and jasmine rice with a fried egg. She said the flavor of the pork chop was particularly good.

As far as atmosphere, it's a comfortable place that comes off a bit dated. The bar is relatively attractive and they've done what they could with the older facility. It's admirable, but not going to compete with some of the more modern restaurants that are in the area in terms of appearance. When you are enjoying your food and conversation with anybody you happen to come with, you probably won't pay much attention to it anyway.

So, if you happen to be looking for Vietnamese cuisine while in the Fort Myers area, I would say stop by. The food is of excellent quality, the prices are comparable to the competition, and the service is quite nice. Just don't go looking for a facility that...

Food ok. Service poor. Was here for the first time looking for a Bhan mi sandwich and some pho for lunch Ordered a Bhan mi appetizer with pork, large pho with rib eye and tendon, extra tendon in the soup, and vietnamese coffee.

Was given water in a mason jar with lemon. Even with lemon, it tasted like hose water. Perhaps consider installing a water filter.

"Vietnamese coffee" came, and was not what was expected. It was virtually all ice, and I got maybe 3 half sips of coffee. It was served in one of those boba tea containers with a sealed lid. A guy at the next table made a similar comment about the coffee he ordered.

Then they pho came out.... Before my appetizer/sandwich. The soup sat there getting cold while waiting for my sandwich. After a bit off a wait and asking a few times, I got my sandwich.

Then I dug into the lukewarm soup. The broth was tasty and really good. However, as I looked, I didn't get extra tendon, but got tripe instead. Not what I ordered. Thankfully the tripe wasn't gamey tasting or that would have ruined it altogether!

During my visit, no one came back to see if I needed anything, or ask how everything was. When I tried to get someone's attention to get a different drink, I was ignored.

There was a party of 4 at the next table. They got 3 of their meals, but never got the 4th!

Nobody at the restaurant said thank you for coming in. I hate to give a locally owned restaurant a less than stellar review, but have to be honest about this restaurant. So, not...

Hello everyone,

I don’t really want to criticize anyone but I think I should say something so if someone were about to go here they know something about this restaurant.

The foods were good, but the service is terrible here. The only job they do were to bring us the foods. First, they don’t smile to customers. Second, they don’t ever come to check if the foods were ok or if something else they can bring us. Third, they rarely say thank you to customers. The only time they did that was after I pay the bill today, but again no smiling. Before this meal, I got a takeout order from them some time ago, and I also was surprised by their attitude of working because no one greets customers, no smiling, no asking if customers have been helped.

I don’t know if they would smile and greet customers that wear expensive clothes and drive expensive cars or give them unbelievable tips or something, but we were nice customers, and we said thank you to them all the times they brought foods to us and they didn’t even smile back. We also gave them 18-20% tips which is what we should do for a good service, even though they were disastrous.

Lastly, I just want to express our feelings as customers, that the service at this restaurant is unacceptable and not professional. If you were working in a place, it was because you chose to do it, so you should do it professionally and show some respect to yourself, your fellow workers and especially...