Lyli Viet-Thai Cuisine - PHOMOUS — Restaurant in Huntsville

Really delicious new-ish Vietnamese restaurant out in Madison. This place replaced Pho 89. I unfortunately never got a chance to try them before they closed, but I imagine PHO-MOUS is a more-than-acceptable replacement because it's really, really good.

Some reviews mention it's next to a cigar lounge. True, and you can smell it as you walk up, but for our experience at lunch on Friday, they had enough candles/clean smells going on it didn't touch our nostrils while we ate, so no complaints there! The inside is small, room for maybe 40-50 guests max, with tables, booths, and a small bar area where you can eat. You seat yourselves as you walk in. A waitress came and took our order, and we wound up paying at the walk-up register when we were finished. The interior is spotless (including the bathroom, per my mom) and has attractive art, including a really cool looking clock over the TV.

The prices were quite reasonable; we got out for a shade over $30 before tip for two chicken clay pots, a Thai tea with boba, and a dessert of sesame balls. Not bad at all! I also placed a to-go order of their chicken wing appetizer to bring home to fiancé.

Our waitress was so incredibly pleasant and sweet, and balanced attentiveness with allowing our privacy perfectly. Food came out quickly and steaming hot.

The food itself, as I mentioned, was excellent. Tender pieces of chicken, perfectly crispy rice, sweet pineapple, and an array of yummy, crunchy veggies: bell pepper, broccoli, onion, bamboo, etc. The Thai tea was a beautiful color and the right sweetness for me. The only tiniest detractor from the whole experience was the boba, which weren't quiiiiite the right consistency for me - a little too gummy. But the lovely service, spotless atmosphere, delicious food, and the new and unique opportunity to try sesame balls for dessert make this a rare five stars on the first try.

Back to those sesame balls...I always relish a chance to try something new, and I've never seen this dessert at any other Vietnamese restaurant in town. Our waitress explained how to eat them - crush the exterior gently before biting so the crispy exterior melds with the soft mung bean paste interior. It was a textural delight, with a crazy crispy-crunchy outer shell and a pleasantly soft, almost cooked-egg consistent interior. Small flakes of shredded coconut inside the paste rounded out a thoroughly unique, tasty, and not-particularly-sweet dessert. It left me with that familiar, toasty sesame flavor. Awesome!

Despite the ~30 minute ride back home, fiancé declared his wings really, really good - high marks after steaming that long in the car. They disappeared quickly.

I hate that PHO-MOUS is so far from me, but trust that I will return when nearby or when the mood strikes powerfully enough I will make...

I don't usually get anything else other than Pho when I'm at a Pho house, but I wanted to try something different and I loved that my dish came with egg rolls! I ordered their vermicelli with grilled pork and egg rolls. So good! The grilled pork was sweet and tender. The egg rolls were delicious. I was a little confused about what sauce to use for the dish. I just dumped the egg roll sauce in with some hoisin and Sriracha and it was good!

My friends ordered the Tofu and Grilled Pork Banh Mi and they thought it was good as well. I brought one home for hubby and he said it was good but a little bready.

I didn't realize I didn't post my review before, it remained as a draft. We've since gone again and this time had Pho. The pho was pretty good, but I think I prefer Viet Huong. The broth was okay, it didn't have a super beefy flavor but it was decent and salted nicely. I ordered the Pho with all the types of beef and counted maybe two pieces of each. Now I actually haven't been to Viet Huong in a while but I'm pretty sure the same bowl had a lot more meat to it.

The surprise dish I liked was the wings. It actually smelled a little weird when it came and didn't look like it would be crispy, but it crisp and delicious. It's not crispy like a battered wing, but the skin was nice and crisp.

My daughter had the chicken curry, she doesn't like fruit and was a little grossed out that there was pineapple in the dish. I even read out loud to her that there was pineapple in the dish. She told me she wasn't listening to me. Any way you can definitely order this without pineapple. I liked her dish so we traded halfway through...

Once upon a time, we drove an extra 15 minutes to another (very good) Vietnamese restaurant further away- and on a whim tried Phomous one day because we didn’t want to fight traffic into Huntsville. I’m sooo glad we did.

The food here is excellent. The egg rolls are perfect, and everything we have had on the menu has been so good. Meat is tender and flavorful. Veggies are fresh. Flavors are spot on. It’s our new go-to Sunday lunch and meet up with friends spot. My extremely picky 7 year old loves their chicken nuggets and fries, which are surely nothing special, being typical nuggets and fries, but are perfectly cooked every time. All the food comes to the table quite hot, fresh and delicious.

The couple who are there are LOVELY. So nice to chat with and provide excellent customer service. We also love the tv playing a YouTube cooking channel of a Vietnamese gentleman who cooks all the traditional dishes outside- it’s fascinating. There’s another tv playing funny animal videos usually, which my kid appreciates quite a lot. (TVs are on mute with closed captions.)

We love phomous and hope you give it a try! (And try the...