Ottawa Foodies

Your comments put a smile on my face....

As you must know, both Lebanon and Vietnam have been French colonies before.... and good French Lebanese food is quite spectacular (Kamal’s in the Glebe was a small cosmos of that…) ... I have lived in Beirut before.... And so is France’s influence on viet food...

Pho is a chinese influenced viet dish and specifically southern chinese. It is basically street food in Vietnam... I have not been so can only comment from the stuff I have eating in Canada and restaurateurs that I have spoken with....

Actually there was an interesting viet restaurant in Ottawa that had non-street dishes for viet food, which ends up being like bland Thai... very good... bland thai because the cantonese like bland foods essentially, just fresh bland food... Anyone know of any place like that? …. not Mee Xim… I have been there….

Anyway... I think it's quite a creative find, this Bien Pho... and one should interrogate the owners a little more... just cause they were arguing is well... nothing to do with the food... Even mauvaise but creative pho might be more interesting that no pho… How was the soup stock?

I have a story about the best soup buns in HongKong where I saw the chef run out at 3am chasing the waiter with a cleaver!!! Hahaha, just like out of a Bruce Lee movie....

This should be called "Mauvaise Pho". It was a disaster. We were in the area and had a coupon so we thought we would try it. First indication of the lack of authenticity is that the owners are Lebanese not even Asian. They were arguing when we got there and to top it off didn't come to us with a menu for 10 minutes. The food was disappointing to say the least. The chicken was not even grilled, it was greasy Shawarma ... I would bet money on it. NEVER AGAIN! Go at your own risk or if you have a less than distinguishing palette.