Ottawa Foodies

Since the great review, myself and 2 co-workers have tried the #37 twice in one week - a great soup!! Staff is great and the service is great. This is my 2nd fav Pho house along with Ox-Head in Kanata with the #HC-4 Spicy stewing Beef. A great winter treat.

JDK

Wifey and I came here on Saturday after an Imax movie. This place is on Somerset just East of Bronson and they close at 9pm, which is earlier than other pho places, but then they also serve vermicelli and rice dishes so I guess that's okay. :-)

It's certainly one of the cleaner looking noodle houses in town -- wifey commented that she recognized most of the furnishings from Ikea.

Cash only, but prices are lower as a result. The most expensive menu items are the Large chicken-broth (Pho Ga) soups, clocking in at $7.75. This little restaurant preserves the wonderful reputation of cheap but great Vietnamese food!

Tried out their Pho and a rice dish on two separate occasions.

Generally, it is nice to have a pho place nearer the downtown core that's walk-able distance for lunch. Nice clean and new restaurant, attentive service and nice presentation on the rice dish, which was with beef and chicken shishes.

The Pho was ok, not as good as Golden Turtle, which I think has the best soup in town. However, Turtle is a dirty place and well, lacks in just about every other area besides the taste of the soup.

So it depends what you're looking for….

Whoa baby! My medium 37. Chicken Sate Rice Noodle soup earned its chili pepper icon with flying colours. You can see the thin but angry-looking layer of chili oil floating in the bowl...

I can safely say that this is the spiciest Sate pho I've encountered, even slightly more spicy than the ones I've had at Pho Maxim. I couldn't really taste the broth as a result but enjoyed it very much all the same. The chicken was plentiful, tender, and in nice small pieces.

Wifey ordered a medium 35. Seafood Rice Noodle soup. It came with shrimp, fish balls, and fried fish slices. Her only complaint was that the noodle ratio was a bit high (some people prefer that though).

I tasted her broth and it was actually quite incredible. Not strong-flavoured at all but incredibly delicious in a very subtle way. We agreed that this was possibly the broth we'd had that was least likely to contain MSG. I'm eager to go back and try a bowl of this myself!