Pho Saigon

Isaiah S. and I came here with the intent of having their Banh Mi Nem Nuong. I quickly changed my mind after seeing the Nem Nuong, akin to the shits of my cousin’s Chihuahua on a hot summer’s day.
We opted instead for their #55 Banh Mi Saigon (a Banh Mi Dac Biet most anywhere else). This is your basic coldcut ensemble. The headcheese here is dyed red. The other meats are suspiciously gray. If you’re the type who’s squeamish about brains and ears, the coloring of the meat here won’t help. Looking into the sandwich is like a looking into an exit wound. That said, the bread is lovingly toasted and the headcheese has a fantastic black peppercorn smoke to it.
filling: 3. Decent flavor, ghastly color. Don’t look down.
bread: 5. The best bread of all banh mi sampled. Phở Saigon uses a larger split baguette so you’re not stuck with the dried out crust of two ends. The baguette itself has a thin, crispy crust, with lots of fluff and crumb.
pickles: 2. Skimpy and unremarkable.
assembly: 3. No Maggi.
perks: 3. The proprietor took the greatest care in toasting.

Spring rolls and chicken with cashews – not a tremendously exotic foray into Vietnamese food, but delicious, especially with peanut sauce.

My experience here was not as bad as I expected from previous posts. After all the finals at my school my friends and I tried the Viet grill as suggested and we all loved it, but the grill was hard to find as it is on the specials menu. It goes great if you want to drink alcohol to. we didn’t get the typical viet foods such as phở or grill pork on rice, we tried their shrimp spring rolls, pan fried calamari (my fav by far), and their quail roti special. Maybe I’ll go back to try the typical stuff but their specials are pretty good, but my friend told me that the quail is actually a cousin of the pigeon yuck, but they made it taste good so I got to give them props for that. If I knew it was a pigeon like bird, I wouldn’t have tried it but thanks to my friend I did which I’m thankful for. Their prices were not far off of 10 per person either, which is good for me cause Im on a budget –_​– But over all I give them a 4, not the best but good enough for me to go back and try some other stuff.

Despite its location and my initial biases, I was pleasantly surprised after having lunch with my family ici, a Phở Saigon. The train-​head beef noodle as I translate it poorly (to lon), was less than six dollars in a massive bowl with half-​beef and half noodles– delicious broth and everything included: omosa, eye of round, navel flank, tendon.
For the daring newbies of Vietnamese cuisine, I recommend to everyone grilled pork, beef or chicken. Why have phở (rice noodle with beef broth, the signature dish of every Vietnamese restaurant) when you can treat your taste buds to grilled delight with special Vietnamese sauce? Try bun bo lui, wrap delicious meat in romaine lettuce, pickled carrots and garlic, and top it with peanut covered rice vermicelli– you’ll have to use your hands.
As for rice dishes, any Vietnamese cuisine buff would know com suon bi, a mixture of three «treasures», grilled pork or chicken with shredded pork and crab meat egg patty on top of white rice.
As for appetizer, if you don’t want regular spring rolls, ask for their special dish, crispy shrimp rolls. Very good and affordable.
With over fifty different dishes to try, Phở Saigo is the place to go to be pleasantly surprised– the seating is comfortable, the service is fast and friendly, and the area is great– to the left is the heart of Grand Street and Canal Street is just five-​ten minutes of a walk away.
Now in the summer, you’ll have to try their durian shake, if you can take durian. What the heck is durian? Well google it! Hope you find yourself at Phở Saigon and make good choices, the food is excellent, better than many of the Viet-​restaurants I’ve been to throughout NYC and even Montréal Canada… and I know my viet-​food, I’m freaking ¹⁄₈ vietnamese! :)

I thought the phở here was decent, although I can’t say that I have much to compare it to.
My friend was disappointed though — she couldn’t find the «ligaments» and «tendons» that she thought would be in the bowl.
The service was fast though. I got my #19 right away!

Haha we were waiting to be seated for dimsum at the restaurant above this place and decided to run in and sample their banh mi right before we were seated.
So I only had the «house special» banh mi. Delicious! Warm, toasty baguette, just the barest trace of mayonnaise (I hate it when it has mayo!), a variety of meats (ham, bits of BBQ pork), plenty of vinegared carrots and daikon, just enough cilantro… mm mm mmm! The reason I didn’t give it 5 stars was because there wasn’t enough pâté (I NEED my pâté!!). =)
Right after dimsum we went back downstairs and bought 3 banh mi for lunch tomorrow =)

i really luvved the authenticity of the food here… i was astounded when i saw that they had avocado shakes! this is something you dont see in nyc… the phở was delicious and i liked the fact that they didnt skimp on the meat like other places do… the banh cuon was the best ive had in nyc also… the ground pork was cooked to perfection with this dish and the bbq meatball vermecelli noodles was fantabulous! i luvv this place because they serve good sized portions and the plate of raw veggies were fresh for adding to the phở… the service was great and the employees are vietnamese! always a plus in my book!

The food here was not good. Ugh. I don’t think I will ever go here again. The phở was bland, the beef was overcooked and hard to chew, and the beef broth had no flavor so I had to overcompensate with the plum sauce.
Usually, when you get the grilled pork chop vermicelli noodle bowl, it comes in a huge bowl and fish sauce on the side so you can mix it all up yourself. Here, the dish came in 3 separate parts, a plate of veggies, a small bowl of grilled beef mixed with fish sauce, and a plate for the vermicelli which makes no sense because when it’s covered in «lut mum» you can’t really grab it with your chopsticks! We also found hair in the grilled pork chop bowl!
Gross! I bought a ‘banh mi’ for tomorrow, but I don’t have high hopes. I’ll let you guys know though.