Offbeat Eats

Our last full day in London, we decided that it would be nice to go on another London Walks tour, this time choosing a tour of the River Lea and the canals, ending up at the Olympic Park site by the Pudding Mill Lane DLR station. But on the way out there, we decided it was a good opportunity to grab some Vietnamese food, primarily since Carol and I don’t get a lot of good opportunities for Pho (the nearest Vietnamese restaurant to our house in New Hampshire is 45 miles away) at Tay Do…

For the nth year in a row, Carol and I went to the Vermont Brewers’ Festival in Burlington, VT. Every year we like to attend on Saturday, enjoy the festival, and then explore downtown Burlington a bit, and then find a new place to try to eat. This year, we settled on Pho Hong. I’ve always loved Vietnamese food, but it’s one of the hardest cuisines for me to indulge in. From my house in Grantham, I can draw an approximate 60 mile radius circle without enclosing a single Vietnamese place. The nearest is in Manchester (Golden Bowl, which I’ve reviewed here). But I’m always looking for new places, and sometime in 2008 Pho Hong appeared, making it the third Vietnamese place in the Burlington area, and (I believe) the first in the actual city.

If you look over my history of postings, it’s obvious that I like Vietnamese food, and like pho in particular (having done at least three postings on the topic). I’m still waiting for that magical day when some Vietnamese people decide to move to the Upper Valley and set up a good Vietnamese restaurant (if you’re somehow thinking about it, let me know, I’ll invest… And be one of the best customers). Until then, I have to get most of my Vietnamese food when traveling. This time, it was Pho Dao #1 in Murrieta, CA…

In late August I had a business trip that included a stop in Arlington, Virginia. From roughly 1991 through earlier this year, my brother used to live in the DC area, so I’ve been coming to various Arlington and DC destinations for quite a long time. Indeed, I’ve long been a fan of several of the Arlington Vietnamese joints. Pho 75 has long been a favorite, and the Clarendon area used to be chock-a-block with little Vietnamese restaurants. Alas, times change, and many of the Clarendon Vietnamese places have been turned into parking lots, apartment buildings, or parking lots turned into apartment buildings.

(Closed) I’ve been a pho addict for almost 15 years now. Unfortunately, living in New Hampshire, I’ve got no local pho joints, and only two that are within an hour’s drive of my home. So most any time I’m traveling to an area with good Pho shops, I try and get a pho fix. Phoenix is a particularly good area for Pho, with a large Vietnamese population. I used to have a favorite place up in Scottsdale by the Motorola plant, but it isn’t there anymore. Khai Hoan on Apache in Tempe is good as well, but wasn’t open on Christmas Eve this year, so we decided to give one of the better-reviewed places in Phoenix a try (19th Ave around Camelback has a number of Vietnamese businesses). We settled on Pho Bang due to a number of good reviews online, including two that mention that it’s John McCain’s favorite Pho joint.