Myra and I have been frequenting the new Vietnamese place down the street from our apartment.  It must be a prerequisite of all Vietnamese places, namely pho shops, that the name of the restaurant be a lousy pun.  Before they can begin to think about the menu and location and all the other silly little details, any Vietnamese restaurant owner must first find a reasonably punny title for their upcoming pho project.  Sorry, any self-respecting pho shop owner, that is.

Frankly, I just want a good reliable Vietnamese restaurant without having to feel like an idiot when referring it to friends or typing the name out on any device with a screen.

So I resolve to type it out once and then not to refer to the place by name in the rest of the post: Pho-Tastic, on 1097 Wuding Lu across from Laowang and down the street from Enoterra, Le Cafe des Stagiaires, Lab, etc.  Right next to the gas station.

We ventured upstairs once but the staircase is a dauntingly steep and not worth the fuss if there are seats downstairs.  As for the food, I suppose I’ll have a much better point of comparison in about two weeks when Myra and I head to Ho Chi Minh City, but I found the beef pho and the pork chop (the other thing I usually order, with either rice or bun noodles) to be pretty reliably tasty.  The soup isn’t complex or unique, but a squeeze of lime and some peppers help you deal with it.  The noodles are consistent, slightly salty, and the beef balls are potently savory in that fried garlic sort of way.

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