535. Pho.

 

  I was in Birmingham city centre having successfully completed a task which I had been putting off for a couple weeks. Feeling rather pleased with myself and being in Grand Central station en route home, and feeling peckish I was suddenly seized by the idea of taking the elevator up to the food hall and eating lunch there. I don’t like food halls - they are rarely peaceful locations allowing a tranquil digestion and a peaceful pleasurable meal. But fortunately it was a school day and so there were no out-of-control children running around and screaming and adding to the pervading oppressive noise. And it was interesting to see just how many different ‘restaurants’ there were there and the wide array of faux cuisines there were on offer.

I had not dabbled in Vietnamese cuisine for a long time and many of the other restaurants looked unappealing and so I opted for the Vietnamese-style, ‘street food’ chain restaurant Pho. I have to stay that I thought the front of house staff were very good -polite but friendly, very helpful and generally likeable.

One of them presented me with the very long menu. I have eaten Vietnamese food in North and South Vietnam but I needed a jolt to my memory to help me to decide what to eat. Though almost all the other diners were having various pho variations, I have rarely derived any great degree of pleasure from the thin soups of east and south east Asia and noodles have never stirred any real enthusiasm in my gastronomic soul and so I eschewed the phos and chose other items to remind me of Vietnamese cuisine. I launched myself into lunch with a plate of what might be politely described as ‘subtley’ flavoured prawn crackers with an excellent spicy sweet chilli dip which I thought was probably the tastiest item served to me that day.

As a starter I chose what turned out to be a large plate of ‘crispy’ pork spring rolls garnished inappropriately, I would have thought, by a big sprig of mint and some dull looking lettuce leaves. The rolls were vaguely ‘crispy’ and the pork inside was unidentifiable. There was no greasiness to the spring rolls but equally they were dry and gave little pleasure. I did not eat them all. The accompanying dip lacked the pleasurable heat of that served with the prawn crackers. The spring rolls were really quite tasty, which was something at least.

  I then had a ‘rice bowl’ served with yet another watery sweet chilli dip. This was described as “ crispy beef” in betel leaf. There was certainly nothing to suggest the beef element was in any way “crispy”. Some of the elements of the dish were nice - I liked the sweet pickled vegetables but the rice was dry though generously portioned I suppose.

For dessert I had a ‘Vietnamese affogato’. What ingredient of it made it ‘Vietnamese’I am not sure but it was enjoyable.

Pho is a chain restaurant. It is clearly very popular. But the food has a number of faults and is there as something to eat rather than something to lyricist about. My advice woukdbe to get on a 45 bus and head for Eat Vietnam in Stirchley - a whole different ballgame.

26 February 2026.

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