Review: Pho Chu The
Restaurant name: Pho Chu The
Location: 108-4633 MacLeod Trail SW
- Food rating 5/5
- Ambience 1/5
- Service 4/5
Location is on west side of MacLeod, across from Hooters/Back Alley, on the main floor of the tall brick apartment building. It is NOT the one in the strip mall on east side of MaLeod (that one sucks.. I've tried it). Parking is limited at lunch.
Go here for the pho, and nothing else. Everything from the taste and aroma of the soup, to the texture of the noodles is phenomenal. This has become my favorite pho place in Calgary. Just to give you an idea of my tastes, my fave places were: Song Huong (and still is for everything not pho), Pho Rang Dong, and Pho Thanh in Huntington. And I've tried a lot of pho places.
The soup is piping hot and full of flavour. Very beefy and lots of spices. The icing on the cake is the little dish they hand out with sliced up little pieces of the really hot chili red peppers. This completely transforms everything for me. After dumping it in the soup, it's heaven on Earth! My wife was only a marginal pho fan but she now loves this place (the peppers seem to do it for her too). Somehow, having it cut up like this makes it very different from other places where you have to break it up yourself and then beware not to touch any "sensitive" body parts until hands are thoroughly washed (i.e. wash your hands BEFORE you take a piss LOL).
The only real problem is that the beef is fully cooked by the time it arrives. So if that's a problem, ask for B.O.S. Not sure if they do this, but I don't mind the fully cooked beef.
A few things:
1.) I've ONLY tried the pho tai and nothing else. OK I've had the spring rolls and salad rolls and neither of those are anything to write home about. But the pho tai is so fucking good that I've not had any incentive to try anything else. My wife tried the chicken giblet pho (which seems to have a clearer soup) but still prefers the regular stuff.
2.) It's kid friendly - they have 3 TVs and one is sometimes showing Treehouse LOL.
3.) They've got Yanni on repeat. Not any one disk, but one TRACK. Since I've been going there half a year ago, it's been the same fucking track every single time. I'll admit, I like Yanni but this is a little much.
Anyway, it's a pho place. I have no idea what else there is to write here. Just go try it. The pho tai is addictive. You won't be disappointed!
You have a couple of photos that are great... you must be very good at photoshop!
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Been going once a week now since I've originally posted. Definitely my go to place now. Bye bye Huntington/Pho Thanh.
