Hong Long Deli & Pho

One of the more recent additions to the neighborhood is a pho restaurant in the Hung Long Asian Market plaza, uniquely named Deli & Pho.

Locations that primarily offer pho have a tendancy to have wonderfully terse menus, but Hung Long is unique within the class in that only offers one size bowl. It isn't listed as a large or small, as there is nothing to compare it to.

Pho: $5.00.

Pretty straightforward.

For your five dollars you can have one of 6 pho offerings, none of which (to the best of my memory, my notes are failing me) are vegetarian friendly.  They do have additional menu items including rice noodle dishes, and 4 vegetable stir fry options, all for about $6.50.

The environment inside is pleasant enough, with windows on two opposing sides providing an open airy feeling. Everything still has the shiny veneer of new construction as well, lending an extra bit of vibrance and cleanliness to the location and a giant mural of cranes gives you a pleasant sense of geography and ethnicity- regardless of how authentic or contrived it may be.

I ordered a pho tai nam, and a lemon soda. The broth was piping hot, which is quite uncommon in my pho experiences, but I wondered if this wasn't because it was the 4th of July, and I was the only person there. Perhaps they had to get it all going quickly to accomodate an unexpected customer.  In addition to the exceptionally high temperature, the broth was also incredibly full of parsley, more so than I've ever been served in a bowl of pho. That is where the superlatives end though. The requisite salad plate had a fair number of sprouts on it, but almost no basil; a shortage which is always disappointing should it ever occur.  In addition to the slim pickings for veggies, the broth was also quite thin.

It actually turned out to be fortuitous that I received a message during my meal and found out I needed to get supplies at the market and hurry home to prepare for some friends' soire that coming evening. I didn't feel bad at all ducking out early on what may have been one of the least interesting bowls of pho I've had.

I may go back on a normal busy lunch hour sometime, just to see if this incredibly lackluster bowl was more a function of the odd time I chose to visit, or if it is infact actually not worth bothering with when there are plenty of other solid offerings within walking distance.  They may have others in the neighborhood beat on price, but for me a two or three dollar savings isn't worth sacrificing for a good bowl of pho.

Hung Long Deli & Pho
9998 15th Ave SW

Pho Tai Nam
Lemon Soda
~$7.25

Pho Aroma

The first thing you notice at Pho Aroma is the atmosphere. What would be slightly more than average attention to decor and style for another restaurant feels all the more luxurious when you compare it to most people's expectations of a pho house.  We'll just get this out of the way first: If you want to introduce someone to Vietnamese food who may be more culturally wary, and possibly put off by the often un-adorned, and sometimes cafeteria level appeal of some pho restaurants, Pho Aroma is your choice (outside of the International District). It has more charm and welcoming character than the Broadway Than Bros has manic brightness and cheap grandeur with its gold and red and mirrors everywhere.

If you really want to go for a smooooth vibe with Vietnamese, Tamarind Tree is your best bet in Seattle, but where Tamarind Tree turns it up with low lighting and formally clad waitstaff, Pho Aroma opts for a more tasteful yet homey feeling. It doesn't hurt that the family that runs it together lives up stairs. You are usually served at one of the 10 tables by any of the younger members of the family, while the elders run the show in the back of the house.

Pho Aroma has a pleasantly long menu that opens with 6 kinds of Pho, including a vegetarian option. Additionally you can choose from a selection of stir fried noodles (mi xao), rice plates (com dia), a kids menu, a family dinner option, and some standouts such as a half dozen non-pho vegetarian items, and the special crepe.

Tea is offered if you want it, and they set you up with ice water with a wedge of lime as standard.

As is my tendency I opted for cafe sua da (iced coffee), and was told that it would be a few minutes so they could brew it fresh for us. I appreciate both the freshness, and being told why it isn't showing up immediately. I have no problem with waiting, but having ones expectations managed is just as refreshing as making sure the product is fresh.

The pho has great presentation here, not something you often get in my experience. You can tell someone is considering how the meal looks before they send it out, and I appreciate that. The thin rare steak is slivery, and evenly floating about the central noodle mass, and the bowl if filled near the rim.

Pho aroma's broth is savory and solid. Its hard for this not to sound like an insult, but I find there to be little about it that is remarkable, except that its always very pleasant. Nothing stands out. But that also means that I want for nothing, and I don't feel as though I'm missing out. There are places with more unique broth and when I'm in the mood for something more interesting, Pho Aroma may not be my first choice, but  it is a solid choice any time, offering a delicious and perfectly capable pho broth.

 The onions are few in number but large pieces, so that flavor is not missing.  The limes, parsley, and basil are noticeably fresh, and one would hope that would be the case everywhere, but sadly it is not.

My only complaint about Pho Aroma really is that they regularly have smooth jazz or some other obnoxiously 'inoffensive' music playing that is really not for me. But, with a good partner to dine with, conversation can take care of that.

One other feather in the Aroma cap, is that they are open until 9, which beats all the other options I can think of, barring one, by at least an hour. It is nice to know that if you get hungry late, or just need some last minute comfort food in the Delridge corridor, you have at least one quality option available.

Pho Aroma
5605 Delridge Way SW
Small Pho Tai: $6.25
Iced Coffee: $2.75



All loaded up with sriracha and hoison:

My lovely dining companion had a lemon grass beef noodle bowl:

Pho Lynna

Next up in our initial tour of the heart of White Center is Pho Lynna. In the time I've lived down here I think this location has been through at least 3 incarnations, all of them Pho restaurants. I tried them out several years ago and found the location to be almost completely marginal; in its appearance, cleanliness, friendliness, and food quality.

I was pleasantly surprised then when I returned last week, and found that although there hasn't been a lot done to change the basics of the interior, it is certainly cleaner, and possibly brighter than before. I think a new coat of paint may have helped on that last count, but I can't rightly remember what it looked like before.

The proprietress was quite friendly, and in addition to her greeting, I also received a generous smile from an older woman seated in the corner who I assumed may be the first woman's mother. I had my choice of seating at any of the 12 4 tops due to the odd time I chose to visit- between the lunch and dinner hours, around 14:30 and 15:00, on a weekday. 

Pho Lynna has a larger selection of Pho options on the menu than I would have expected. They also offer chow mein, chow fun, 6 Thai dishes including pad thai and pad kee mao, beef stew, vermicelli bowls, terriyaki, and bubble tea.

In looking for my beloved salad rolls on the appetizer menu I stumbled across a listing for pot stickers. As a general fan of gyoza these piqued my interest, and with no fresh rolls on the menu, they were a quick substitute for me appetizer needs. I don't think of pot stickers as a particularly standard item for Vietnamese food, but I'm seeing them more and more, especially at establishments like Pho Lynna, where the menu starts to become a bit more pan-east Asian in general, rather than strictly Vietnamese offerings. 

I will admit, I didn't have high hopes for them, as most gyoza I've had at restaurants of this style/price point tend to deliver only acceptable or decent dumplings, but I ordered them none the less, along with an iced coffee.

The friendly grandmother delivered my water and coffee, with a fresh trip, and a fresh smile for each drink. The coffee was served already brewed, and came out in a parfait glass with shaved ice. This excited me at first, probably because shaved ice is a bit of a novelty, but over the course of my meal I came to think less of it, as the increased surface area leads to a quicker melt, resulting in watery coffee very quickly.

My pot stickers came out next, followed by the pho about 5 or so minutes later. Aside from sheer gluttony, one of the reasons I love appetizers with pho is that I can assemble my pho with the vegetables, sriracha and other sauces that I prefer, stir it up, and leave it alone. The appetizers give me something to do and keep me from diving right into the pho, which I have come to learn is the best way to go. Why?  Pho is usually assembled in the kitchen with a batch of noodles, and a portion of meat both added to the bowl of broth just before it is brought out. The noodles and meat cook some in the hot broth, the broth impregnates the meat and vegetables, the meat flavors drift into the broth, and the broth, which is now a meat-broth-vegetable mix, coats the noodles as they continue to cook and soften. All of this leads to much more balanced and robust pho experience.

I was pleased to discover that the pot stickers exceeded my expectations. They plate of 6 I received were not amazing, but they were quite good. The dumplings were made of a somewhat thick dough, which impressed me all the more. I find thick dumplings to be all the more easily undercooked, overly doughy, and unsatisfying, but these had a very nice firm texture and were nicely crisped on the outside, though not quite enough to be golden in color yet. They were served with nouc cham for dipping rather than a soy based sauce you would expect in a Chinese or Japanese establishment. While I love the traditional Vietnamese garlic sauce I wasn't sure I would enjoy it with gyoza, but again I was pleasantly surprised, and found it to be a great companion. The potsticker filling was warm and very finely chopped, and I saved a few of them to return to over the course of my meal.

The size of the small pho was hard to gauge really, as it came in an very large bowl that was only about 1/2 filled, which throws off visual estimations a bit. In retrospect I think it was overall probably on par with a small from Than Brothers, with perhaps just a little smaller noodle portion.

The broth was a little light on onions for me, with a slight salty main profile, but not overpowering, on top of a solid earthy base. There was a great mix of oil in the stock, and I found it balanced well with the juice from the fresh limes. Over all I considered it a worthy bowl on its own, and my additional enjoyment of the pot-stickers, the entire meal was lifted to a level that I will purposefully return to explore their offerings a little further.

Pho Lynna
9600 16th Ave SW
Large pho: $6.35
Small pho: $5.45

Pho White Center / White Center Pho

With the original inspiration for this endeavor being documenting Pho in and around White Center, it only seems appropriate that it begins with a visit to the generically eponymous White Center Pho (or Pho White Center, I'm not exactly sure what the intended order of the name is).

This is a good example of the archetypal establishment many Pho hunters might think of when they imagine a Pho house in a more traditionally non-caucasian, non-hip neighborhood. Smallish, bright fluorescent lights, nothing too special aesthetically, and probably worse than 50/50 odds that you may not be able to communicate much with the proprietors beyond the menu items and hopeful gesturing, if you only speak English.

Pho White Center is one of this type that you may hope for in that despite a limited common language, the folks there are immediately friendly and welcoming. And while the smiles may substitute for conversation, they are genuine and plentiful. As is the tea, which came out even before the menu. I confess to not being a connoisseur of tea, so evaluations of the drink in these pages will be mostly limited to its existence or not, unless I get some more learned co-conspirators to chime in on it. I believe the pot they brought out to me was some sort of herbal green/jasmine. While I don't get excited about tea, I do appreciate it when offered with a meal. Water was not forth coming by default, though I'm sure I would have been obliged had I asked for it.

The house has probably 10 tables, most of which seated 2 or 4 patrons, and in the time I stayed, there was a pretty constant stream of them. Judging by the greetings exchanged, I wager many of the patrons I saw were regulars of one form or another, which I find encouraging.

The drinks and food were both delivered by an elder gentleman who didn't really say anything, but gestured and returned my nod of thanks with his own nodding smile each time he visited the table. My order was taken by a very cheerful middle aged man who spoke excellent, and heavily accented english. Over the course of my stay both of them spent most of the time behind the very small cashier counter, mostly smiling out over the customers, or just into space. When only the younger of the two was manning the counter, I was treated to his fairly clear and uninhibited acapela rendition of I Will Be Right Here Waiting for You, by Richard Marx, while he tapped the counter and watched the pedestrians go past on 16th. It was a bit strange to be serenaded thus at lunch, but all at once kind of endearing in its honesty too.

The menu has a fairly standard offering of at least 5 or 6 types of Pho, including chicken and tofu. Additional categories listed are bubble tea, rice plates (com dia), rice noodle entres (bun), bun mi, fried rice, fried noodles, and Thai specialties.

I ordered what is generally my standard choice, a large pho tai (sliced rare steak), and cafe sua da (iced coffee with condensed milk). I like to sample more or less this same dish the first time I visit a Pho house as it establishes a solid baseline for comparison ( I usually opt for pho nam or pho chin, if for some reason the tai cut is not on the menu). In my mind it is more or less the Pizza Margherita of Vietnamese soup- any restaurant worth visiting should be able to do a good or better than good job on this important staple.

While the ambiance of the location, the customers, and the staff all made for a rather charming feeling, my meal did not live up to my hopes for the place. The broth was particularly disagreeable to me, and while I tried to adjust my expectations to perhaps see it as something good, just different than what I might expect, unfortunately I was unable to find a way to really enjoy it. The broth was extremely oily, and there was a pronounced, almost cloying, sweet taste to it. I couldn't identify what the ingredient was, but it was that sharp oily sweetness that was definitely putting me off. The rest of the soup ranged from respectable to good. The portioning was quite large... possibly the widest bowl of Pho I've ever been served... maybe 10 inches rim to rim? And it was filled nearly to the rim. There were plenty of noodles, and about average amount of meat. Large pho frequently disappoints me because the increase seems to be mostly in the broth, leaving me often wanting more noodles, but this serving was proportioned well, which was great to see. There was a generous amount of white and green onion slices in the broth, which is also always a win in my book.

The coffe scored well for me, as it is served in the drip filter that allows you to let it brew at your table (ca phe phin). Not only do I appreciate the simplicity and engineering of this delivery, I like knowing that my sua da hasn't been decanted from a coffe urn in the back where it has been sitting all day.

While most of the specifics of this visit made for a good lunch, I will hesitate to go back due to the broth. I appreciate unique pho broths, and often enjoy it when a chef leaves his or her particular mark on their stock, rather than making it more or less like everyone else. However, this particular one was too strong in its oily sweet profile, to the point where it had a recurring bite to it that I could never get used to and so I reacted to it with every bite, somewhat as one might to an astringent taste or acrid smell.

I may try again to see if this was an anomalous day for the broth, but probably not until I've made the rounds of the neighborhood some more.

Pho White Center
9640 16th Ave SW
Visited: weekday, lunch hour
Ordered: Large Pho Tai ($6.75), Cafe Sua Da (~$2.00?).