Pho Top Restaurant — Restaurant in New York

Pho review

This is a review which should have been written a year ago but it has only just come to my attention that I haven’t posted a review of my favorite Pho restaurant. Read, if you have the time and want the details, but here’s the tl;dr:

Fantastic perfect neat but flavorful bowl of pho, always comes hot with chewy noodles and thinly sliced beef. Just a perfect way to start or end a day. All the check marks are there for the perfect bowl of pho for me. Very convenient parking, Friendly and outstanding service by staff always and a great selection of fried items as well as drinks! My absolute favorite go to for pho.

Yes, it is my absolute favorite restaurant for pho. I frequent this restaurant at least 2-3 times weekly even wen it is out of the way. I’m very particular and my tastes may vary from yours but listed below are the reasons why this place ranks on TOP for the perfect bowl of PHO for me:

1 soup. Always piping hot, not to the degree of burning you but I believe a good soup is best when the temperature is “if you drink it too fast, you’ll blister the roof of your mouth.” It’s clean and unaltered with too much fragrance. This is where the majority of pho lovers split in terms of their preference, dirty or clean. Much like describing NYC “dirty water” hot dogs, it is everything but. Dirty just means darker and richer in flavors and aromatics. Pho Top has a neat, clean but very flavorful soup which at first look, might look too watery but once you taste that first spoonful, you’ll begin to understand a “less is more” mouthful of flavor.

2 noodles. Noodles. CHEWY noodles. THIS is, for me above anything else, the most important and critical part of a great noodle soup. Yes soup steals the show, but the noodles is like the woman in, “every great man has the support of an even greater woman.” This place consistently has soft chewy noodles in a hot soup. It’s one of the simplest things that are the hardest to perfect. I always order an extra side of noodles because it’s never enough of course but mainly, because that second batch of noodles with a bit of extra soup (no charge for the soup) is perfectly chewy and makes the second round even better.

I’d hate to say it’s nothing fancy because it sounds like it’s not justifying the work and dedication that most likely went in to creating this perfect bowl of neat pho, but it is in its entirety, exactly that; nothing fancy, no one flavor over powering another, just a simple bowl of soup, perfected, IMO Ofcourse.

To end, the staff is always welcoming and tentative, large spread out tables and well lit dining hall and spotlessly clean. The restaurant is conveniently located in a small shopping outlet with plenty of FREE parking which makes up about 30% of decision making when thinking about going out to eat at any restaurant.

Pho Top, thank you for existing and providing so many wonderful meals, enjoy many successful years and additional locations and never forget that...

A relatively new Vietnamese restaurant. I'm largely not a fan of restaurants that try to go into serving a cuisine not native to them, this has resulted in some very disappointing/near inedible food in the past, but these guys (Chinese-operated) are a happy exception! I'm very impressed with what they've served up, there's not a lot of memorable phò places here in NYC (for the most part, try to wow with food presentation aesthetics than taste) but this place will be a go to. Well done! throws confetti

Prices are standard, takeout portions are hearty. We ordered #17 and #18, if you're not a big fan of tripe, just go with #18. Condiments and garnishes supplied were the right amount to achieve a balanced bowl pho. The broth didn't have that depth in flavour of more authentic pho houses but was delicious nonetheless, the noodles were thinner than the standard type traditionally used but worked. They were very generous with the meat, the round steak beef was good quality.

Included in the photos is the most recent menu, prices have had a slight increase from the last few months. You don't have to worry about the 'covid tax' some restaurants tack on their orders, our total was only $22 for 2 phòs. Doesn't leave you feeling heavy afterwards.

Next time I would love to dine in, the space was impressively large and modern, very clean. I think this business will do very well, I can't wait to try their other options.

Happy eating and...

Garbage. Wasted $75 for delivery. 5 orders and not a single sauce in the bag. Have to eat the dry spring roll vermicelli, dry greasy sandwiches, bland pho noodle soup….called and lady insisted it’s all inside the bag haha. So she’s insisting I am lying? Check the cameras? Just lost a loyal customer. They don’t care after you paid.

Edit response: Dear owner, when I spoke to you on the phone. I gave you my address again and you said “it was too far just to deliver the sauces again” did you not say that? Let me remind you, I’m only 1 mile away. Also every restaurant has cameras now. Did you not check the cameras? Of course you would rather trust your employee instead of your loyal customer just because they don’t want to get in trouble? Rest assured when I paid for my $75 order. Why would I waste my time to call you to explain and leave such a honest review for you if I really did get my sauces for my order? It’s like ordering a pizza and not getting any sauce on your pizza. Just dry dough and the toppings. Please stop joking if you are still in denial. How is your business still...