Pho 79 — Restaurant in Chesapeake

$21 for Hot Buttdoosie Water in a Bowl? Pho-get About It.

I dined in at Pho 79 and ordered the Pho Tái, Nạm, Gầu, Gân, Sách—aka, round steak, flank, brisket, tendon, and tripe. What I received was a bowl of disappointment dressed as tradition. The rice noodles were overcooked, mushy, and falling apart like they’d had a long week. I’ve worked in restaurants—I know pre-bagged pasta when I taste it. It was painfully obvious they blanch the noodles ahead of time, toss them in the fridge, and then just reheat them with broth that looked and tasted like dirty dishwater.

Speaking of broth: it had a grayish tint, was completely devoid of real flavor, and was heavily spiced with clove, almost like they were trying to hide the fact that it was old. Authentic pho broth should be rich, fragrant, and soulful. This was not that. This was broth that made me question my life choices.

Let’s talk condiments. The amount of sriracha, hoisin, and chili paste they offer is laughably stingy—like I needed to fill out a W-2 to get more than a drip. The meat portions were sad, hidden under a mountain of noodles that clearly tried to bulk up the meal and mask how little care went into it. The bean sprouts were slimy and brown, clearly rinsed to look fresh, and the “lime” was a pathetic micro-slice that barely qualified as citrus.

Pho used to be a sacred bowl of affordable healing—$5.95 at most. Now they’re charging $21.25 for hot buttdoosie water and a bowl of shame. I swear, their ancestors probably want to come back and slap the pho out of them for dishonoring the roots and soul of this dish.

As for the Gỏi Cuốn ($8.45)—I ordered them without shrimp, and they still charged full price. What I got were hard, dry spring rolls clearly pulled from a cold fridge, with pork so dry it was practically jerky. The peanut sauce tried to do CPR on the dish, but the rice paper wrap was DOA. If you’re removing protein, lower the price. Anything else is a scam.

If you’re going to charge fine-dining prices, put fine-dining effort behind the food. Pho 79 is all markup...

If terriable service, being ignored forgotten and served substandard food is what you want go to Pho 79. 11 March 630 pm so me and roommate went out for food we arrived seated at a dirty table then we're given menues and had to wait for some one to come by and take our drink order while others were being seated after us and they were being served drinks finally had to get attentions to even get drinks then ordered an app a1 and 2 bowls of soup a h3 and #4 waited o understand busy have to wait but they forgot our app once again family next to us got food and apps before us he'll our food arrived before our app then the h3 had burnt noodles that came out of the bottom of the pot and manager said of there just crunchy no there burnt there hard clumped together and taste like a burnt piece of soggy bread the #4 had was fine my roommate said bit come on then no once in over 45 min did anyone come to check if we need a refile had to walk glass us to counter for that really ....... worst experience I've had there had some bad ones being forgotten or something missed but burnt food and horrible service of these are things you want goto Pho 79 on Sam's Circle...

We come here to this location alot and never seem to have issues but today we came and the staff was totally different than usual. We were displeased when we saw the dishwasher wear an apron into the bathroom and come out and go right back to the food area then stacking clean glasses by ice machine. The waitress’s and waiter were wearing gloves the whole time we were in the restaurant and they never changed them or washed their hands once. They were cleaning tables , bring the food out and touching peoples food, touching trash, ringing people up and touching computer screen, carrying dirty dishes , reaching into the ice machine and filling glasses with ice WITH THE SAME GLOVES! It was very disheartening to see and made us not want to eat the food. I brought it up to one of the waitress when leaving she acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about so I asked for a manager and she said there’s nobody in charge there right now. I said there was a lot of health code violations she acted like she didn’t care. Overall very bad experience and management needs to teach staff about health code violations and...