Pho A.V. — Restaurant in Phoenix

My girlfriend and I are always looking for new Vietnamese restaurants to try. We went here for dinner last night and here are my impressions.

The Atmosphere:

It’s a small cozy type of restaurant, the whole family seems to be working there.They have a tv on the wall that was playing YouTube videos of Vietnamese street foods. The grandmother working there is an adorable woman who served us our first dish (seasoned shredded pork rolls). The grandmother and our main server were great. We did have a kid with tattoos who didn’t respond to us at all. He kind of reminded us of a robot who just brought the food and awkwardly walked away. Not sure if this was due to us or him just being socially awkward.

Our main server was responsive for our refills and any questions we had. He even provided us with additional vermicelli (the noodles) to go for our leftovers.

The Food:

Besides the shredded pork rolls, which are very good we both ordered the Vermicelli with eggrolls & seasoned shredded pork – Bún thịt nướng chả giò. The portions where nice but I found the meat to be lacking a bit. This could be biased as I feel that way everywhere I go due to liking allot of meat ratio to my vermicelli. Overall everything was fresh and delicious. A HUGE bonus is how inexpensive their prices are! Seriously $7.99 for each bowl. That’s is crazy cheap compared to other Vietnamese joints in the valley.

The over all experience was a good one and we...

I went to order dinner tonight and I ordered Thai tea with no ice because i didnt want the ice to melt by the time it got home. The woman poured half a cup full. I asked the woman at the counter if she could fill it up and she refused, saying because I didn't get ice that's all I get. The people sitting at a table asked me if she understood me and when the cook (owner) came out they asked him if they could fill up my cup. He said no because I didn't get ice. I told him that's being cheap and what is it going to hurt to fill up my cup to appease a customer. He said I can go elsewhere if I'm not happy with it, then went back to the kitchen. The other customers said sorry we tried. Then I got up after waiting for 15 min and asked for a refund. The woman said why, I told her because the cook told me I can go elsewhere if I'm not happy. Then she went to the back, the cook came out and said why do you want a refund. I said because you told me to go elsewhere if I'm not happy, so I'll go somewhere else and never come back. He then told me I have to pay for the tea because I drank it (which I didn't, because the tea wasn't for me). I told him no you will give me a full refund and I didn't drink the tea. The owners are rude and cheap and I'll never be back. I've never met cheaper people in my life, when it would have cost them .25 cents to fill up my cup of tea that I paid...

Phở Tái Nạm (Rare Beef & Brisket)... Large $13.99

1. Portion size 5/5 - Old school portion size. Largest for the price I've seen yet in Phoenix.
2. Noodles 5/5 - proper uncut sized and portion is above average.
3. Onions 5/5 - Lots of green and white Onions
4. Meat 4/5 - Very edible meat. Could have offered a few more pieces, but it was consistent with other restaurants.
5. Broth 4/5 - Highly edible. Not elite level flavor, but better than average. Its almost a shame the broth wasn't ultra flavorful because they do everything else so well.

Total score - 23/25

Conclusion - To be considered (by me) as Elite Level Pho, a restaurant must score 5/5 on the broth and have a score of at least 23/25 . Pho A.V. is a very very good Pho place scoring 23/25. If the broth was more flavorful, it would have scored nearly perfect. There is no shame in driving from across the city for this Pho.

2nd dish was Cơm đặc biệt. Pork chop, shredded pork, fried egg and rice. This dish was excellent... 4.5/5.

Overall Pho A.V. is a very very good restaurant if you like the dishes I had. I've not found any better in Phoenix yet. The atmosphere is lacking but this can be overlooked as thai restaurants are rarely scoring over 3/5 on atmosphere. For Google purposes I'll rate it a 5/5 for Thai...