Pho 3 Pho — Restaurant in Hollymead

Great atmosphere and nice people, but everything else failed. I ordered two dishes before the person taking my order suggested the special. They said it was Pad Thai, but strangely didn't seem to know what I was talking about when I then pointed to it on the menu to confirm. They said yes, that's it.

I ended up getting some kind of fried rice, and didn't realize it until I was sitting there at Valentine's Day dinner with a very hungry date, so couldn't reasonably take the 45 minutes to go back and have the correct order made.

The cilantro in the vermicelli bowls was about 5% completely brown and spoiled.

Additionally, I expected at least two spring rolls in the pork and spring roll bowl--but had only one tiny one. Par for other Vietnamese restaurants is at least 2. The amount of noodles and toppings (both cheap ingredients at-cost) was underwhelming for the $15+ per meal price tag. I was still very hungry after eating it all.

The pork was fairly dry and nothing like what I'm used to from other Pho and noodle restaurants.

I had high hopes for this place when I walked in and saw how nice it was, but cutting pennies by including too few noodles and toppings alongside one measly spring roll, and using spoiled cilantro--made me decide not to give it a second try. Maybe there was a communication barrier when I pointed to the Pad Thai to confirm that it was the special I was being offered, yet there really is no excuse for then handing a customer a box of rice when it's not...

Few years in the row, the national dish of Great Britain is declared to be Chicken Tika Masala —a dish from Indian subcontinent. I cannot be certain if people cooking it and serving it are all of Hindu extraction. Can a Welshman, or an Irishman prepare an authentic Tika Masala? I don’t know the answer. I imagine when you are in the mood for ethnic dish, be it Mexican, Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, or what have you, you would want it to be ethnic enough to provide you with an experience of something exotic, something you don’t taste every day. But what if, when you come to a Vietnamese restaurant, the staff are of the wrong ethnicity? Everyone at the Pho 3 Pho is of Latino heritage. This is a Latino restaurant oddly serving Vietnamese food. My pho was authentic, and if my readers know anything about food history, “authentic” in the case of Vietnamese food is very much French cuisine brought to Vietnam by the French during colonial era. I believe what we have here is a case of cultural re-expropriation. Please vote up and down on my review to help me understand: Is cultural expropriation always wrong, or culture wars are a lot of people with too much free time on their hands and...

Second best pho I have ever had besides phubs in maryland, even better than what I can make myself. Have had both the shrimp pho and the vegetarian tofu pho. Definitely prefer the shrimp pho to the vegetarian, but both were pretty amazing. I would recommend replacing the imitation crab meat with shiitake mushroom and spinach in the shrimp pho. The vegetarian was pretty much perfect, can always just add more veggies. The restaurant is the cleanest I have ever been in by far. The service is super fast and super nice. If you are looking for pho near charlottesville or ruckersville, this is absolutely the place to go. Pho is just not as good when you order pickup, so I would strongly recommend going in person and having a great meal and leave a great tip! If you want to order a bahn mi or spring rolls it's good, and if you live only a few minutes away to go is okay, but if it's more than 10 minutes come in and sit down and enjoy the super clean place and the amazing pho. The $1 more for the large is always worth it in my opinion. Anyways, I'll be coming here anytime I need pho while living in...