ottawa foodies

We visited the other night and had an overall disappointing experience in terms of food quality. Was it just a bad (but busy) night or has quality suffered over time? Very hard to tell without another visit.

Our menu:

* 060. Shrimp Spring Rolls (Cha Gio Tom) $5 - Just okay, but not the wonderful shrimp taste we remembered having here. Served warm not hot.
* 063. Rice Wrap with Shrimp (Goi Cuon) $5 - No herbs (bad), no bean sprouts (good).
* S2. Udon Noodle Soup w Chicken (Banh Canh Ga) $10 Large - Very mild, almost bland, broth. Not very big for a Large. Lots of boiled chicken meat in there though..
* S9. Shrimp Won Ton with Rice Noodles (Hu Tiu Hoanh Thanh) $9 Medium - This was sized closer to a Small in other places and priced closer to a Large.. Some wontons tasted like shrimp and some did not.
* A2. Green Papaya Salad with Shrimp (Goi Du Du Tom) $7 - Coarsely chopped sugary carrots and scant shrimp made this our biggest disappointment. This was not even close to my other recent Papaya Salad experience.

Menu prices have all gone up by $1-$2 compared to what you see on the 2011 online menu. Fair enough, however it makes the food here cost more than other places while the quality is not correspondingly better.

Returning from a short road trip to Toronto this past weekend, my girlfriend and I needed something light yet tasty to tide us over. We agreed on Vietnamese. Neither of us are very experienced with Vietnamese food, but I do enjoy a good vermicelli dish now and then. I my go-to is Siagon Pho - not because it’s the best, it just happens to be where I normally go – and for the most part I am happy with their food.
On Sunday, I pulled out my trusty Ipod, and navigated to Ottawa Foodies in search of good Vietnamese food. On the main page the New Pho Bo Ga La (NPBGL) is listed as the “best” pho (or most popular based on votes).

Ok, sweet, so we checked it out. Upon arriving, I felt great seeing as though the place was bursting at the seams with customers and in my head I was saying “see, honey, Ottawa foodies nails it again”, luckily I wasn’t that cocky out loud.

Most people we saw were eating Pho, but we were taking out and opted for Bun (because we thought it would be easier to take home) with a starter of bbq pork rice rolls. My order consisted of shrimp on sugar cane (cool!), bbq beef, and spring roll, and my lady got the same but had bbq shrimp instead.

Right of the bat, Saigon pho serves a better vermicelli dish in my opinion. The beef at NPBGL was very dry, overcooked and tough –this was the biggest disappointment. They didn’t include enough salad, mint and carrots and such, and the sauce (is it fish sauce of some sort?) wasn’t copious enough to coat everything. The shrimp on sugar cane was super cool though. It was a ground shrimp mince wrapped around a sugar cane. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to eat the sugar cane, but I did chomp on it quite a bit to suck the sweet goodness out.

The bbq pork rice rolls were quite good.
This place is obviously an Ottawa institution, as there was a lineup of people waiting to get in. Should I have stuck to ordering pho? Was the meh quality because I was ordering takeout (since I guess I could have asked for more sauce to order, or returned the dry ass beef?), or are their vermicelli dishes normally under par?

I will give them one more chance, and I will order Pho. Thoughts?

Well, I guess I had a sorta different experience then the rest of your today. I went here for a date at lunch time. I ordered the rare beef, brisket and fatty meat, and well, the beef was bland, and chewy and not that great. The broth I will concede as amazing and I couldn't get enough of it. However, the price was excessive. $7 each for a small? That's almost twice as much as I paid at Pho Thu Du a couple weeks ago for a small. So yeah, in summary.

+
Great broth, fast service

-
Lackluster Beef, high price.

Must agree with all New Pho Bo Ga LA fans... a rare find. The space is bright and clean, the food is bang on and the service is so fast they're like a blur.

The ultimate hangover cure (not that I would know) and among the best pho I've had in North America.

The rice vermicelli dishes are also outstanding. I'm so spoiled by them I just can't do Vietnamese elsewhere, I agree with CapitalDigs, the broth is packed with flavour.

Try their sugar cane shrimp... then suck the juices out of the warm sugar cane.

More info and pics on my blog: www.foodgypsy.ca

This is my pho place. Pho real.

There are a handful of pho restaurants to choose from in the immediate vicinity, but I'm partial New Pho Bo Ga La's broth. They're quick, efficient, cheap and I'm a sucker for a bubble wall.

My wife and I went here for lunch yesterday, as a little post-anniversary date.

Got a small rare beef, fatty beef, and tendon pho.

Let me tell you, I think it was the best pho I've ever had. The broth was, as mentioned below, flavourful without being salty. The meat was also full of flavour, and the tendon chunks were extremely generous.

And, here's the kicker: it was fast. Maybe it's because I've only had Vietnamese at Pho Maxim for the last year or so, but I was not expecting us to get our full meal within four minutes.

My wife, not being as big a fan of pho as I, really appreciated having a full selection of non-pho noodle dishes to choose from, too.

Paid by debit; don't know if I ever need to go to another place for my pho fix.

I love the atmosphere of this place. It is very traditonal meets modern day. I love their pho as the broth is very tasteful without being overly salty. If anyone is craving good vietnamese pho, here is where you want to drop by! However, if you're craving rice dishes, I would not recommend this place as their portions are small :(

They take cash & debit, not visa/mastercard.

I think your friend might have been mistaken... in my experience, they don't take anything but cash, ever. It's frustrating, but understandable I guess (if you think about the charges etc. that accepting plastic can bring).

Well. Basically they don't accept Visa/MC/Debit Card when we paid (i.e., only cash). But my friend said that they saw them accepting credit card payment from others though.

Hi Ashley

Could you please explain the following comment further...

"For Asian customers, they only accept CASH payment. But I don't think they have such requirements for Caucasian customers. "

I ordered #2 (cooked beef pho, medium size) for lunch. Their clear broth is pretty good (only small amount of MSG used)! Good place to go for Phở. Also got my vote.

Gets my vote!! Amazing broth :).

Like Pho Bo Ga LA (Pho Bo Ga LA), they also serve a shrimp cracker with their satay-style soup. The shrimp and chicken satay soup (S3), was decent. Broth is sometimes awesome here but was just okay today.

Unlike the other "Pho Bo Ga" restaurants, this one offers a full menu of non-soup dishes.

FF, we got lots of mint!

Very fresh, good shrimp, but low on mint and the sauce was more like hoisin with peanuts floating in it rather than the really great peanut sauce you sometimes get in other places. Still, not bad at all.

We also ordered their Spring Rolls. One order consists of 2 little rolls only (not 3). We asked the server to give us a pair of scissors to cut each tiny roll into 2 so that 4 of us can share. The taste was very good. But just too tiny!

One order consists of three little delicious rolls as opposed to only two. Best bang for your buck on Somerset.

Shrimp spring rolls were piping hot and very good!

"new" Pho Bo Ga la

A very worthy bowl o' bun bo hue..

Bun with 3 choices of accompaniments: shrimp on sugar cane, grilled beef and spring rolls. Again, one of the best in town. The marinated carrots and turnip (lo bok) add that extra yummy flavour. The shrimp on sugar cane was crisp and sweet.

My only complaint is that the upkeep is questionable. The place was still busy (Tuesday night) with lots of turnover. I just wish it was cleaner.

By far my favourite bún in town. The spring rolls are the best. They have a lot of flavour and are in a wrinkly crispy texture. The grilled pork is also fresh and perfectly grilled. It is better than Saigon Pho on Somerset in that the meats don't have that overmarinated (possibly for a long time) taste.

Hard to explain, just a very good balance of flavours!