Pho Song Huong...

I'm always on the look out for good pho places here in Edmonton. For those of you who do not know what pho is,  it is a Vietnamese noodle soup usually served with beef or chicken. The soup includes vermicelli noodles made from rice and is often served with basil, lime and bean sprouts. The correct pronunciation would be "fuh". No I'm not trying to swear. lol

Back to Pho Song Huong, I always drive by this place while driving home with my boyfriend from his parent's place, and thinking we should try that place some day. Meeting up with some friends we decide to go there for lunch. The thing with pho restaurants is you're never going to find one that is "posh" looking, far from it. You want a nice place to eat at go to Earl's. Usually the outside would be ghetto looking and if you're lucky the inside may be decent looking. When you think about it you're really there for the food not for the decor. I always joke about it and say "the more ghetto the restaurant looks the better the food because they put all their time and effort into the food!" lol

Walking into the restaurant we got lucky because it's decent looking. Looked like they took the effort to make the place look nice. A for effort I say! The server comes up and asks "how many?" when we tell her the number she tells us to sit anywhere we like. Um...why ask how many people we have in the first place? Just wondering.  We find our table and sit down, the server hands us our menus. Looking at the menu it's pretty cool actually the covers are made of wood. Looking through the menu it's pretty basic just like any other pho restaurants, it has it's usuals.

We just cracked open the menu and the server is already asking us if we're ready to order. We tell her we'll need another couple of minutes. I decided on #27 which is the beef noodle soup with round eye steak slices and beef flank slices or pho tai nam in Vietnamese in a size small. My boyfriends orders #18 the special noodle soup combo that comes with round eye steak, flank, tendon, tripe and Asian beef meatballs also in a small.

Our soup is brought out and I take a look at the broth and I see that it's clear and no thick layer of oil. I have been to places where there's a thick layer of oil on top and it's pretty gross. Makes you lose your appetite. Who wants to eat a layer of oil? Second thing I notice is that they give you a lot of meat! That is a bonus, usually some restaurants skimp out on the meat and just give you more noodles.  Sneaky, I know! I give the broth a taste before I add anything to it and it was delish! It was pretty flavorful, instead of adding a heck load  of my usual hoison sauce and hot sauce to the broth , I only added a little bit of each out of habit.

I must say I finished the WHOLE bowl. I never finish my bowls because to be honest the pho is not that great at some restaurants. Even my boyfriend was surprised, he said to me "it must be that good eh?", yes sir it sure is! The service overall was OK, friendly and efficient, mind you when we were there it was not too busy. Can't say how the service is when the restaurant is busy. We did have to flag down someone for our bill and had to go up to the till to pay. Speaking of the bill it came out to $28 for the four of us. Pretty good, can't complain!

I will definitely come back for the food and recommend this place to everyone I know. Maybe next time when I come back I'll give their Bun Bo Hue (another type of beef noodle soup) a try.

Strawberry Rating:

Service: 3 strawberries out of 5

Food: 4 strawberries out of 5

Price: 4 strawberries out of 5

Cleanliness: 3.5 strawberries out of 5

Overall score: 4 strawberries out of 5

You can find Pho Song Huong at:

12929 97 Street NW

Edmonton, AB T5E 4C2

Phone:(780) 478-1557

Happy eating!

"Red meat is not bad for you.  Now blue-green meat, that’s bad for you!"  ~Tommy Smothers


***Please note the pictures here were not taken by me and it's not from the restaurant.