House of Pho

If you're looking for a dish that is fresh and fragrant and satisfying and yet affordable, you can't do much better than a piping hot bowl of Vietnamese noodle soup, and there is an awesome new place to get it, House of Pho in Framingham. This is a small family run Vietnamese restaurant. In this case, the family is a mother daughter team. Mindy Nguyen is the owner. She's an educator by trade, and then she decided to get into the Vietnamese restaurant business, and her first hire was her mom, Minnie. And she really is mini. There are literally pots that are bigger than she is. She's the personality and the inspiration behind everything in this restaurant.

This is the food that she has been making her entire life, old Vietnamese family recipes that are now being served to the masses. The name of the place is House of Pho. And so, of course, their specialty is pho. Now some of you might be thinking, what exactly is pho? First of all, it's pronounced phuh. It is not pho. And now you know.

So essentially, Pho is the national dish of Vietnam. Basically, this is a noodle soup, and probably the best noodle soup you're ever going to taste in your life. The key to pho is the broth. You get this incredible depth of flavor from slow cooking this broth over hours and hours. The most traditional type of pho is the beef pho. So this actually has several different types of meat. You have sliced steak, brisket, these beef balls, which are like Vietnamese style meatballs. It is fully packed with a massive mound of rice noodles. Inside you have noodles, you have your beef and that broth. The broth is amazing, but part of the fun is you get to kind of customize it, because they bring you a veritable salad bar that comes on the side.

First thing I like to throw in is some of this Thai basil, definitely enhances every bowl of soup. You also gotta throw in a few bean sprouts. This gives you a little bit of crunchiness. Definitely gonna throw in a couple of jalapenos as well. And last but not least, you gotta add a little bit of a squeeze of fresh lime juice. That is *** delicious, I don't think we can get away with that, but we'll see.

Pho is really the ultimate Vietnamese style comfort food, and for me, nothing is more comforting than chicken soup. So this is the best of both worlds, the chicken pho. Now this uses a completely different broth. This is a chicken bone broth, so you get all that depth of flavor, all those herbs, all those spices, but with an extra punch of poultry. So this broth is nice and clear, so you can see those noodles just popping right up through the bowl, and then lots of white meat chicken scattered all throughout some vegetables and some herbs. I don't care if you're sick with the flu, this will probably kill it.

They also have a full roster of other kinds of soup besides just bought. This is one of my favorite soups on the menu. This one is actually made with a combination of a pork and a seafood broth. Kind of reminds me of a Japanese ramen slash a Chinese style wonton soup, and it comes with some char siu pork. That's the Chinese style roast pork. You have the savoriness from the pork, fresh vegetables, egg noodles, and that saltiness from the seafood. This is a soup that is, frankly superior. So whether you like beef, chicken, pork or seafood, they have a phenomenal selection.

Let's back up and go to the start of the meal. Number one gotta get appetizer are the egg rolls. These are super crispy, golden brown on the outside, packed with a combination of pork carrots and mushrooms on the inside. Believe it or not, the chicken wings are very popular here, but this is the appetizer I'm going to recommend, above all else, the Vietnamese style spring roll. So these use a rice paper on the outside, which is literally translucent, so you can see right through it. And you know what you're going to see inside? You're going to see a combination of fresh shrimp, some mint, some chives, and they pack some rice noodles in there too. These are meticulously wrapped up by hand to order all day, every day. It's served in the side of peanut sauce. Grab the spring roll. Give it a dip into that sauce. Give it a taste. The rice paper is such an interesting texture inside, bursting with freshness. Every single bite of this thing is a flavor bomb. Listen, you probably go out for Chinese all the time, or sushi or Thai food. I think you need to add some Vietnamese cuisine to the mix, and the perfect place to do it is right here at the House of Pho.