"Its been one week since you looked at me"
More like two years if you were my food blog. I admit I flirted with the idea of bringing back the blog (often at the most inappropriate times, like right before finals) and lack of time wasn't the reason I let this place collect dust for so long. In two years a lot has changed, in my life and my perspective with food. I got my undergraduate degree for one thing (yay!) and am looking to take my first steps into a new career. But despite all the "knowledge" my academic transcript says I've gained over the last four years, the most poignant realization I've come too is that there is a hell of a lot of shit I don't know anything about. This was the first reason for my hiatus. Although I have decent knowledge about food I have no experience with reviews and it didn't feel right to be throwing around numbers arbitrarily just because I didn't like the chili marinade in someones ceviche. The second reason for not picking things back up was predominantly out of respect. Those who know me understand that I have a deep respect for food and I realized that this same respect should extend to restaurant reviews. Real people are trying to make their livelihood from some of these restaurants, not every establishment is backed by giants like O&B or Cara Group. Therefore if we're going to critique and share our opinions regarding a restaurant for 2.7 billion (and counting, more people are using the Internet every day) people to see then we better do it right. With this in mind I hope to resume trying delicious things and writing about them but in a much different format then before. I've decided to implement a variety of changes to the way reviews will be done around here and they are as follows:
- Every restaurant will have a minimum of two visits within 3 weeks before a review will be written. This will help reflect that restaurants are not static establishments, your experience at a restaurant can dramatically differ from one visit to the next. Consistency is the mark of a good kitchen!
- No numbers, I'm not an experienced food critic (yet!) so there's no reason to act like one. I will simply write about each dish tried and about what I liked and disliked. At the end of each post I will simply recommend or not recommend the place for others to try
- Timing matters, restaurants constantly change staff, chefs and menus so if a review is more than a year old I'd probably look for a second opinion
- Finally take everything written here with a grain of salt. Ultimately any review will be subjective, regardless if its been written by Zagat or Bruce the burger eater
Pho Viet, located at the corner of Warden and Steeles in the same plaza as the T&T supermarket (and the hordes of horrible drivers that frequent the parking lot, trust me I'm one of em). As you probably guessed from the name the place serves Vietnamese food. I frequent this small establishment often (which should be a hint for what I'm going to say later) especially during the winter time. Like most Vietnamese places in the city this one serves pho so you bet that was the first thing I ordered. I must admit that initially I was not that impressed, the broth itself was less flavourful and deep compared to other pho broths I've had in the city (Pho Hung and Pho 88 come to mind). But I want to comment on this and use it to illustrate the subjective nature of food. When it comes to soup noodles, I'm a broth guy. The first thing I do when I get a big bowl of noodles is taste a spoonful of broth. I usually don't enjoy adding anything to the noodles other than some chili oil (mmm feel the burn) so the Sriracha sauce and hoisin sauce that you so often see at pho restaurants are usually relegated to dipping sauce and never make it into the soup. But I have read discussions online that in some regions of Vietnam (predominantly in the south) their pho is often eaten accompanied with Sriracha and hoisin mixed directly with the broth. So I went again to Pho Viet and ordered another bowl of pho and this time mixed Sriracha and hoisin straight in and tried it. I must say the sauces definitely helped patch a lot of the holes that I initially felt the dish had and made me think that perhaps I was unfairly judging the pho here when I was too used to eating it without the sauces at other pho places.
Next up on the menu were rice dishes and I must say they were underwhelming at best. The sauce on my tamarind chicken was overpowering and way too sour. This was made worse considering that most of the plate was drenched with it leading to me having to abandon most of that meal. The deep fried chicken wings with fried rice was better as the chicken was crisp and juicy but the rice was dry and a little cold coming right out of the kitchen.
This far down I'm sure you must be thinking if you don't like their pho and you don't like their rice why do you come here so often. Well sometimes all a restaurant needs is one star to get you coming back, one knockout punch, one heavy hitter and at Pho Viet its the bun bo hue. Bun bo hue is another Vietnamese soup noodle dish, but unlike its pho cousin bun bo hue noodles are thicker, rounder and white. The broth itself is beef based and tasted heavily of lemongrass, fried garlic, onions, spring onion, cilantro and of course chili oil. The broth was intensely flavourful, smoky and had various elements of sour, sweet and spicy all working harmoniously. The dish is accompanied by shredded cabbage along with the usual pho sidekicks: bean sprouts, lime and mint. The dish also features chewy pieces of beef flank/tendon and wonderful Vietnamese ham (otherwise known as cha lua). O boy do I love that ham. My only qualm with the dish is that at times the noodles are a tad softer then what I would like but the broth more then makes up for it. Overall the bun bo hue is a great dish and one that you don't often find at the generic pho places in the city and this alone lures me back time and again.
Recommended
Pho Viet is located at 7010 Warden Avenue, Markham, Ontario unit 17 & 18 you can learn more about them here on their website.
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