I Pho — Restaurant in Lakewood

I LOVE this place for the best brisket and steak Pho.

Pho noodle soup is a food I’ve been eating for decades.

It’s a favorite of mine for something warming, delicious, tasty and fairly healthy.

I have fond memories eating bowls of soup with my Uncle after martial arts training in Seattle.

However, as I got older I could taste the difference between sugar in the broth, poor meat quality or the obvious ….

…small portion sizes.

As a father I take my son out for steak pho ( my 5 year olds favorite; and I want him to enjoy his steak as he is a steak critic.

He also prefers, like me, egg noodles which can be harder to find ( or they serve a tiny amount)and you have to order more.

His mom makes steak for for him so often we find the pho at the other popular spots to be disappointing by either the steak, quantity or egg noodle value.

This place is THE BEST.

Not only is the lovely young lady in glasses super kind and accommodating but the food portion and child friendless is above and beyond.

I go to a lot of higher traffic pho places and they aren’t this thoughtful or considerate.

I treasure this delicious pho place for their high quality broth, steak, brisket, large ( actually large) bowls, egg noodle servings and hospitality.

I feel like with rising costs of food this place has actually improved their food quality and portion.

Their non pho soup items like vermicelli bowls etc are different than other Vietnamese places.

I took my friend and he preferred their less sweet approach and almost more “ chinese” style cuisine.

I’m not sure what to credit their influence but know that it’s not the same vermicelli bowl with fish sauce you’re used to ordering.

If you’re looking for the best pho soup restaurant between Lakewood and south Tacoma way this is it!

Delicious hot Bowls, high quality food , lovely service and great value servings.

I come back often and I see the locals who come often as this is one of the best local spots you can eat pho soup at in Lakewood, south tacoma way and Bridgeport area.

Definitely...

GOOD BUT NOT PERFECT 7.5/10 With salt 8/10

This broth is very good. There was just something not quite there with it. When you sip the broth and expect strong savory notes, you actually taste strong sweet notes. This broth is much too sweet in my opinion. Ive noticed that the dumber the population, the more sugary they like their pho, so it makes sense its sweet like this in Lakewood. Also, red onion AND white onion. When red onion is used, it almost always means greasy sweet broth, and that was the same here. BUT!

But... You can do a lot of things at the table to fix this broth. I added quite a bit of salt and that ALMOST fixed it. I actually used all the salt that was left in the container on the table, or I would have added more. It was at about 90% of its potential id say.

Also, when this broth cools down about half, its complexity and deliciousness goes up significantly.

Heres my read: this broth doesnt use MSG, and it should, and we want it to. The savoriness that is missing is the unfair advantage of using MSG that has become a flavor weve all learned to love. It also tasted like there was a lot of cinnamon. So much. But its good.

The meatballs are GREAT! The meatballs are the longer-bodied, medium-length preparation version, quartered, and then sliced. They are very, very good and they satisfied me. When eaten with the jalapenos, it was quite excellent.

I wouldnt come here again simply because I look down on pho that has to rely on sugar to bring people in but the pho actually is very good with a pile of salt on top.

The peanut sauce gives away the sugar-ant game a little bit, by being highly chocolatey. I liked it, but. Its low-brow sugar sauce that lacks the decisiveness to do what needs to be done and be savory at all costs and stay as far away from sweet...

This place is great and has wonderful food but VERY often when I pick up food from here, they will give me the wrong order and then when I go back to try and fix it, they asked me to one bring the food back to pay for the food again and three tell me that it’s my fault that I didn’t get the right food. I don’t work there and it is not my job to make sure that the right customer gets the right order that is quite literally what the job is of the restaurant with to go orders. Again great food nice people and a good clean atmosphere but you can’t tell your customer. It’s their fault when you hand them the wrong bag for to go food that’s not fair it’s not good service, and it’s just weird. They often won’t force you to pay when you come in but over the phone they will tell you that you need to pay for the order again to get the replacement. Also, they should not be taking food back that’s against health code.

All of that being said, I do understand that there is a language and cultural barrier that causes some of these issues. However, if you decide to make a business and have those issues and repeatedly are accidentally giving out the wrong item, there needs to be a system in place to Avoid those issues and a protocol for when those issues do arise so that you can equally care for the customers as well as the...