Pho

Here it is...one of the restaurants I usually keep close to my vest. Pho is at 73 Mulberry Street, between Canal & Bayard. CPZ brought me here years ago, and it's still a tried-and-true cheap/delicious/fun standby. She's a New York Native (a rare species), so I can always count on her recommendations to rock. We went here again last night, and I noticed some of their prices have gone up a dollar or two, but the portions are still big enough to share and more importantly, still full of flavor.

Every time we go, we get the fried spring rolls (they have pork inside) and the papaya beef salad (Note: They have a decent selection of vegetarian options if you're so inclined, but this post is mostly meat-related). The spring rolls are always perfectly crunchy, but just soft enough that they don't fall apart in your hands. They come with this dipping sauce that is so good, we keep it on the table the rest of the meal to douse over our noodles, etc. The salad isn't on the menu, but it's ALWAYS on the specials board. We noticed this time the price went up 2 dollars to 11.50, but trust me when I say this is still an excellent deal. The cool, shredded papaya is the perfect complement to the hot, charcoal-y grilled beef, which is so tender you don't even need a knife to cut it. This IS a spicy dish, by the way. This time it was so spicy I had to slow down a bit! Between the two of us, we can almost finish this, especially if we are super-hungry.

(a CU shot of my salad--after I'd already eaten the meat. Isn't it pretty?)

For our entrées we both got the grilled shrimp over vermicelli. 6 bucks!! That's basically a dollar a shrimp ;), plus noodles, lettuce, chopped peanuts, cilantro, etc. I took the rest of my spring roll sauce and a few dots of sriracha sauce to this bowl, and it was absolutely fantastic. It also made me fantastically full.

Another must-have for me is their Vietnamese iced coffee. It's very strong coffee that slowly drips out over condensed milk. You mix it and pour it into the glass of ice. Strooooooooooong, son, but oh-so-scrumptious. This time, I was so enamored with the food that I almost forgot it was sitting right in front of me! That papaya-beef salad will do that to a girl. ;)

This place is definitely in my Top 5 for cheap eats, not to mention it never fails to make my taste buds happy.

Pho Restaurant
73 Mulberry St.
New York, NY 10013
212-233-8988