Pho Bistro

Basic mom & pop lil’ restaurant in a crappy strip mall. But love the food — been back like 4 times! I order the Phở with tofu and vegetables every time and enjoy it sooo much! Fresh veggies and the broth is to die for! My g/​f orders the same thing, but with a vegetarian broth — so just know they have that option for you hard core vegans.
Also ordered to go — and almost like that better — they do such a good job of packing everything up, even the soup!
OK now I’m craving it — see you there!

This place is under new management!
They changed their name to Phở Crystal Noodle House, and it tastes SOOOO much better! Go check it out!

I recently moved so I wanted to discover my new neighborhood. Naturally I needed to find my go to phở place so I looked up the closest phở restaurant. Phở Bistro it was!
Phở Bistro is a small shop with a mom and son working. Mom doesn’t really know any English but the son does. He took our orders promptly and brought out our waters. We ordered two bowls of phở, an order of spring rolls and an order of egg rolls. Our phở came out shortly later. Yes, our phở, not our appetizers. Their appetizers! Meaning before our meal! Regardless that didn’t irritate me too much. I was starving so I wanted to get my hands on anything I could eat.
The phở comes out in a big bowl. I actually thought their bowl was very cute. Very deep and Ikea-​looking. Just on appearance I knew their phở was going to be different. The broth was very dark. I’ve never eaten phở with such a dark broth before. It had a richer taste than what I was familiar with. Not necessarily a bad thing but just different. The noodles were also a little too al dente for my liking but I didn’t find that too much of a problem. They are a little frugal with their meat. I ordered the combo with tripe and I think I found one piece of tripe. A small one at that. Whomp whomp.
Spring rolls and egg rolls were up to par. I wish I could have enjoyed them with my meal but being that they came out midway through our lunch I was too stuffed to eat them. I took them home for dinner. Their dipping sauce for their spring rolls was a little odd, runnny and too hoisin-​y in flavor, so I opted just to dip mines in sriracha.
I have to go back and try their phở again. I need to put my finger on what their broth is all about. The weird thing is that if they didn’t call this phở I wouldn’t even think it was. Maybe I’m not such a phở connoisseur as I thought I was.

I’ve only been here twice and both times the place has been under new management. Very basic phở spot, PHO is decent. noticed the noodles were a little stuck together when given to us. spring rolls were good, food came quick and i was out faster than i thought i would be. it is in the most random-​est shopping center but its easy to get to!
i would definitely return.

Phở Bistro is on the corner of Segerstrom and Bristol next to the IHOP in an old strip mall. I would not have even seen this place if not for their new sign. I was happy to see Vietnamese place outside of Bolsa so I decided to stop in for a try.
The inside is simple as with most Vietnamese places. It is clean but they do not have a lot of traffic yet. They have only been open for two months.
I was surprised by the staff. The lady who took my order was friendly and conversational. Which of a rarity at most phở places. Another guy that works there was also friendly and talkative. They were like this with the other customers too.
The food was pretty good. I had the combination phở (regular size). That large bowl is always a hard one for me to take down. The tripe was fine to me and the other meat was pretty good. One of the meats had a lot of fat so I just skipped it. As stated before the broth was a little oily but it did not bother me. The Vietnamese coffee was prepared fresh but unfortunately the coffee was hot when they made it so it melted the little amount of ice fast. Overall, I was satisfied.
The price seemed a little higher than in Bolsa (I will post the menu soon) but they gave a discount since they just opened. phở and coffee for about $ 7.
Overall, the food was OK but the staff were welcoming and friendly. I may just try it again for that fact. Good to see Vietnamese place branching out of Bolsa.