Pho Sate, Reopen in a New Location on Graham Road in West Falls Church

[The Hersch]

Our go to Pho 88 is somehow closed on Tuesday (!), so we gave Pho 50 a try.

I gather you're in the Falls Church/close-in Fairfax area. Back when I used to work in that part of the world, my favorite pho place was called Pho Sate (with six or eight diacritic marks over the e), which was in the crummy little strip mall on the southwest corner of Annandale Road and Rt. 50, which was torn down a while back. Pho Sate had vacated the place quite some time before that. I didn't realize it, but they've reopened (I'm pretty sure it's the same folks) in a less crummy strip mall on Graham Road just south of Lee Highway. Have you been? If not, you might want to give them a try. I can't recommend the place, not having eaten there, but I loved the pho at the earlier incarnation.

[DonRocks]

I gather you're in the Falls Church/close-in Fairfax area. Back when I used to work in that part of the world, my favorite pho place was called Pho Sate (with six or eight diacritic marks over the e), which was in the crummy little strip mall on the southwest corner of Annandale Road and Rt. 50, which was torn down a while back. Pho Sate had vacated the place quite some time before that. I didn't realize it, but they've reopened (I'm pretty sure it's the same folks) in a less crummy strip mall on Graham Road just south of Lee Highway. Have you been? If not, you might want to give them a try. I can't recommend the place, not having eaten there, but I loved the pho at the earlier incarnation.

Indeed they have reopened, in the same shopping center as the nasty Ba Le Vietnamese Deli, and I haven't yet been. Thanks for the tip - every time I drive by here, I ask myself why I haven't gone (but it's usually on the way to, or coming back from, Pho 75 or Pho 50).

[Dr. Delicious]

I only had a sip of the wife's chicken pho, but I thought it had a good flavor. Not enough of a taste to give a more detailed review. I got #609, which was a noodle dish with all sorts of meat and veggies. I didn't like it. The sauce was very gloopy and lacked taste. The food was also swimming in it. It got better after I dumped sate sauce in it, but not enough to make up for a bad dish. Oh well you wun some you lose some

[The Hersch]

I only had a sip of the wife's chicken pho, but I thought it had a good flavor. Not enough of a taste to give a more detailed review. I got #609, which was a noodle dish with all sorts of meat and veggies. I didn't like it. The sauce was very gloopy and lacked taste. The food was also swimming in it. It got better after I dumped sate sauce in it, but not enough to make up for a bad dish. Oh well you wun some you lose some

A Vietnamese woman I used to work with told me to avoid ordering pho at restaurants that don't specialize in it. I think a good corollary is to avoid ordering other things at restaurants that do.

[DonRocks]

A Vietnamese woman I used to work with told me to avoid ordering pho at restaurants that don't specialize in it. I think a good corollary is to avoid ordering other things at restaurants that do.

I entirely agree with the first part of your statement (*), and it's something I've always said (I came very close to saying it in response to a recent Rice Paper post); I also agree with the second part of your statement, but not as completely - I've had good items, especially appetizers, at Pho specialists.

(*) If you've ever peeked in the kitchen of a reputable Pho house (Pho 75, for example), the pots they use are simply gigantic - not as large as the veritable cauldrons some restaurants (Gom Tang E, for example) use to make Seul Lang Tang, but extremely large all the same. Note also the extremely large pot used at Daikaya Ramen. I suspect that the vast majority of non-Pho-specialists simply don't have the metal (that was a pun, and a very good one (scroll down to segment #9 for another)) to make great Pho.

[Dr. Delicious]

A Vietnamese woman I used to work with told me to avoid ordering pho at restaurants that don't specialize in it. I think a good corollary is to avoid ordering other things at restaurants that do.

I get that. But this is not a restaurant that has simply thrown a handful of non-Pho dishes on its menu for those that don't wan't Pho. The restaurant has a 10+ page menu offering a wide variety of dishes, with only one of those pages dedicated to Pho. Even if it's in their name, it doesn't seem unreasonable given the breadth of their menu, to expect non-Pho dishes to be at least tasty (I wasn't expecting them to be prime examples of what they should be).