Pho 32 & Shabu

We decided to give the Vietnamese sandwiches a try. We usually go to another place down the street.
AWFUL
They have very little meat, which in the case of the classic was a good thing.
The Classic was cold, old roast beef and bad ham. There is very little flavor other than that.
The Chicken maybe had an ounce of chicken and not much else.
We also picked up some Pad Thai which was bland, tasteless and mushy.
We waited almost 30minutes for out takeout and the place was EMPTY. Not to mention they had bad radio pop music blaring out of speakers placed around the restaurant, very weird.
the staff was nice.
There are a ton of other noodle/​vietnamese places on the block. I suggest you try another one.

What the PHO? Koreans cooking Vietnamese food? Just no.
The Phở broth is way too light — it is missing that soul that real Vietnamese food has. The house plates taste like something I could cook at home. That is pretty sad because I can’t cook.
The food is pricey, the service is slow — how do they have so many locations? We’ll never know.
If anyone knows a legit Vietnamese joint please let me know! LA has me craving some real Phở Phở =(
These rhymes brought to you by a Korean, that doesn’t cook Phở well either.

Phở 32 & Shabu is a nice little nook near a $ 5 haircut place tucked into a street full of spooky piercers and practiced karaōke swingers.
Brothers Phở 32 & Shabu make their way around the restaurant accommodating their clientele and squirting hot hot sir cha-​cha into the soups. It’s hard to tell Phở 32 and Shabu apart (because they are twins) but I am inclined to hint that Shabu is the kinder of the two and if you treat him with respect, he will reward you with an extra handful of sprouts.
Broth good, other stuff in soup pretty good. Weird stoves in the table that act solely as obstacles and will burn you if you are not careful. 3 stars

Is this place closed now? Came here two weekends ago and it was somewhat dead. Was in the area this past weekend and not only were they closed (with that «Open 24 Hours» sign still up), chairs and tables were moved around as if they were closing up shop.
Either way, I doubt they would be horribly missed. I ordered a small bowl of Phở Bo. It was overpriced and super tiny. I think I got about two bites of noodles out of that. The fully cooked, thinner-​than-​thin slices of beef were just as meager. The broth was surprisingly tasty though. Yeah, I was shocked! It wasn’t great, but it was pretty decent. I’ve had some pretty horrific Phở in my life (mostly in NYC), so grading on a scale, its actually pretty good here. It just didn’t have enough of anything else to make it a decent bowl of Phở.
Cool Happy Hour though…$ 3 pints!

I don’t review very often but I thought it was necessary after seeing this place being panned the past few months.
My boyfriend and I are a regular here. This place has great phở. Fresh and good-​size portions. If you’re reading reviews about the broth not being «flavorful» enough these people don’t know HOW to eat phở. The broth, while light, has the flavor of brisket and parsley as it is supposed to, and I always add two to three lime squeezes while my boyfriend adds chili and oyster sauce.
The great thing about phở is that you customize the intensity of the broth flavor to your own taste, and for me most of the time I seek out phở I’m looking for a filling and tasty meal that’s not too heavy on the sauces like ramen or thai curry can be.
I love this place and come here every week or two. Good price (my favorite is the mini phở with sandwich) and good food. Don’t pass this place up just because of these reviews or a quiet night.

Cheap. Not very good service, but food is decent for the price.

Bad sign when a giant restaurant is dead empty. I figured, we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. The menu which showcased their shabu-​shabu was glued on each of the 4 menus we received. Another strike, we don’t serve that so, we’ll pretend it doesn’t exist anymore.
The Phở we ordered was like salted water with instant noodles and fish cakes. Zero love, zero freshness. Trust me, stand in line for the legitmate, Japanese patron filled Ramen/​Soba shop, two doors down on the left. Never again.

Not bad but not great. I only tried the phở so I can’t account for the other dishes they have. The broth wasn’t too tasteful so I had to add some plum sauce. There really wasn’t too much of a difference in size between the small and the medium size phở.
Credit card minimum is $ 10.

*This story involves 2 creepers*
I was walking around the East Village with one of my girlfriends, trying to find a place for dinner. 2 guys approached us and asked for recommendations on where to eat. Being an avid Unilocaler, I started pointing out my favorite restaurants in the East Village. Next, they asked us if they could join us for dinner… you know… a dinner date.
More like… NO.
My gf and I started walking quickly so that we could lose them. We decided to try Phở 32. The phở comes in 3 sizes, small, medium, large. I had the beef brisket phở. Since the medium was only a dollar more than the small, and I was famished, I decided it would be worth it.
The broth was pretty plain… it almost tasted like water. Dude. did you guys run out of fish sauce or beef bones or whatever? Apparently so.
When we left and headed for the subway station, those guys found us again. OMG.
One guy kept asking for my number and wanted to go on a date. Urm… NO.
Note: credit card minimum is $ 10

Firstly, what’s up with the name? On a cold, snowy day, we quickly decided on this place out of all the other places on St. Marks because of the Shabu part. We were in the mood for some hotpot yet to our disappointment, they don’t have it although it’s part of their name!
My pineapple fried rice was pretty good, full of seafood and stuff, I can’t complain. But for 15 dollars, hmm, i shall try other places. My friend’s phở was not as flavorful as she liked. My bubble tea came out was bubble slush =(We ordered one or two appetizers which I forgot what they were because they were just that average…
They have decent priced drinks during happy hour though, i guess that’s a plus.

They’ve taken shabu shabu off the menu, so all that’s left is mediocre phở. Service wasn’t great. Food was meh. There’s much better options on this street.

I better hurry and write a review of this place before they go out of business. But then again, this place might ironically outlive us all. I did end up eating there a few times now just because they seem to be one of the few restaurants on St. Marks opened early enough in the daytime. After a 10am session at Yoga to the People, I can be uncharacteristically blasé about where I eat.
Funny how I can’t find any traces of Shabu on their menu even though the name of their restaurant is clearly: Pho32 & Shabu. In fact, they have a hodgepodge of every mainstream Asian food they can fill in except for Shabu. A very basic selection of Chinese dim sum, Vietnamese banh mi, Thai pineapple fried rice, Taiwanese bubble tea, etc. All on the menu with pictures. There’s a how-​to eat Phở section on their menu. It all begs the question: Why are they oversimplifying Asian food so much?

I don’t know why the bad reviews! Decent phở, not the best of course, but it’s decent
I love their pork chops and the grilled chicken here. Tender and juicy and marinated nicely
And they have awesome happy hour menu… everyday to like 12am!
$ 3 dollar wine and beer… whats not to like
Will return again

This is probably the worst phở I have EVER had… I’m sorry but I am from Houston where there is a large Vietnamese population. I’ve been spoiled with real good phở and other dishes.
I ordered both a phở and a grilled pork and egg roll bun. I was extremely hungry after a long work out. This was the only place opened after midnight
My large phở was extremely bland, flavorless, and the meat was very limited. Why would I ever want to pay a few bucks more just for a few slivers of meat? it makes no sense
The vermicelli bowl was embarrassing, The amount of noodles was almost non existing. The grilled pork was extremely dry and over cooked.
The fish sauce was completely bland and flavorless!
The waiter however was extremely nice and attentive. I feel bad he also gave me a free shot of sake and a sprite. Not something I needed after a work out but how can i ever turn down free stuff?

Had the chicken pad thai. It was good, but spicy. The portion size was fine, but it didn’t have much chicken. I would have liked more.
The waiter service could have been better.

Memorial day weekend, and me having my shoes fixed on St. Marks, I had an hour and a half to fill. My daughter, who hadn’t had lunch yet at the first sign of Phở said we are going there.
My mistake, I didn’t Unilocal the place and decided to walk in…
The Good’s
— Place is pretty big, very clean
— Bathroom was spotless
— service was pleasant
— They have instructional videos on how to eat Phở and Shabu, which even for a confident Phở lover, was helpful.
— Excellent street view
The Bad’s
— Slightly expensive than any other Vietnamese Phở joints
— Phở was pretty substandard. It was like boiled water with some flavoring cube added to it. Though the meat was pretty good.
To be fair, if I wasn’t a regular Phở eater, and was going in just to try phở, i would have been satisfied with this place. But this reviewer has been tainted with some excellent Phở joints in NYC

Decent phở spot. It’s clean, large and good service.
What I like about this place was that you could had a choice of small, medium or large bowls of phở.
The phở itself was ok. I wanted more pieces of beef in it. I wanted the broth to be more flavorful. But it did its job of filling me up. But really, I’ve had better phở in Chinatown.
Every table is accompanied with the Sriracha sauce, garlic chili sauce & hoisin. All three were dumped aplenty into my bowl! That helped with the flavoring.
What I found amusing was a t. v demo of how to eat your phở and shabu shabu.

For some reason, I just knew this wasn’t going to be that good. No idea why, but just had the hunch that this Phở wouldn’t be able to compare to the one on 32^nd street, and boy was I right.
Service was really good. They sat me immediately and the food came out pretty fast, but the noodles, just weren’t up to par. The broth was just as good, but the noodles tasted very starchy and were clumpy as if they were cooked over and over again. How clumpy noodles with a starchy taste is even possible is beyond me, but somehow they were able to do it. Granted the broth was much better than the Phở’s in Chinatown, but with the extra $ 5 i’m paying, it isn’t worth it.
Both Phở’s just threw the noodles in the broth, expecting it to cook, which it did, but having to mix around noodles and try and unravel them isn’t what I want to be doing. I won’t be visiting this particular location, but I will go to the Phở on 32^nd street.

You can’t really mess up soup noodles, can you? Ordered the veggie spring rolls and soup noodles with brisket, beef tendon and something else which I can’t seem to remember. Pretty standard fare. The spring rolls were freshly made which is how they should always be served.
Seems like soup noodle prices are increasing all around this city. Oh, and a well kept bathroom. A definite plus.

Okay so this is the perfect place for a phở craving. It always hits the spot! I know a lot of people don’t really like it, but I really enjoy it. I don’t really have anywhere else to compare it to, but I like it. Maybe it’s because it’s owned by Koreans and it’s been changed to fit the Korean taste.
The shabu shabu isn’t too good though.
The spring rolls on the other hand are pretty good. It’s a fun thing to eat too because you get to make it, but make sure your hands are clean when you go in. (:
This was also the first place I had Vietnamese drip coffee, and it is good!
The wait staff is friendly too. (: