Delicious banh mi @phosaigonpearlla it’s pho sure legit! No wonder they won the #globalcusine award for Best Southeast Asian Restaurant in LA! #midwilshire #fairfax #banhmi #phosaigonpearl #lunch #dinner #pho #yummy #getit (at Pho Saigon Pearl Los Angeles) https://www.instagram.com/p/BrgOkTmn74E/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=pl41pm8e33gf
Gotta love it when people can poke fun at themselves. You rock @phosaigonpearlla ! . . #goodsenseofhumor #phosaigonpearl #phoonfairfax #sandwichboardwisdom #yelphumor https://www.instagram.com/p/B6MP5oDgJn5/?igshid=diaree42yjz8
I actually was going to do an entry on Tianjin food, but my wife informed me that we haven’t had the restaurant I had in mind’s signature dishes yet, so I will hold off on that. Anyhow ...
Happy Chinese New Year! Welcome to the Year of the Monkey! Traditionally in for Chinese New Years people will eat things like noodles for longevity. Well, for my new years, I decided to go get pho at Pho Saigon Pearl.
“Hey Food Ronin ... Isn’t it Chinese New Years? Why Vietnamese food?” Well Chinese New Year, or Lunar New Year, is celebrated by lots of other cultures including Vietnam. Lots of different Asian cultures may celebrate in different ways. I was feeling something refreshing today, so decided to go with pho.
Pho Saigon Pearl actually has two spots open. The one I went to is in the Diamond Jamboree but there is one in the Irvine Spectrum Center as well. I started off with some spring rolls and a Vietnamese Coffee.
The spring rolls were really dry. It isn’t as much the shrimp as the pork ham that was in it. The pork also lacked any sort of recognizable flavor to it. The rest of the components were nice and fresh, but were severely overcast by the pork.
I am not a huge coffee drinker, but I tend to taste it for the sake of recognizing decent coffee. There is definitely better iced coffee compared to what was here, but it was passable. This is more bitter than sweet, which isn’t a bad thing depending on your preference.
We had the Combination Soup and the Pho with Rare Steak. Both don’t aesthetically look too different, and most of the components are the same. The combination has beef meatballs which is the only notable difference.
Overall it had the freshness that I was looking for. Also the flank steak was excellent. I usually prefer meat rare, but it paired well with the soup, as sitting in the soup softened it up and gave it an even better combination of savoriness between the soup and the meat.
I was pretty satisfied with my food at Pho Saigon Pearl. I will be looking to explore more pho places around the area though, as I haven’t leveraged the plethora of local Vietnamese food.
