Nick R.
Yelp
Y'all, it is no small feat to make vegan pho broth. Good pho broth isn't actually that hard to do (for a regular Vietnamese household), it just takes a while. Great broth is hard. But take away meat, and it's very difficult to get that fragrant, heady taste that's meaty but light. Some places go hard on mushrooms for the umami, which is a different profile altogether. Even more places treat the broth as an afterthought, rather than the soul of pho.
All Chay has great broth. The right smell, the right taste, the right color. And their vegan meats are the right texture, there's even a pretty passable version of the classic Vietnamese pork sausage. If I had to quibble, I'd say their noodles were a bit insubstantial, but if that's the worst thing I can say, they're doing pretty good.
After their pho, I had to take a banh mi to go, so went for the All Chay. This was an excellent vegan banh mi, from the taste of the protein to the textures of the vegetables to the tang of pickled carrots. Really well done.
Chay, by the way, is a Buddhist term for vegetarian fasting, originally from the Chinese. So it's no surprise to find statues of bodhisattvas and messages wishing for the happiness and health of people and animals. That aura of kindness and warmth permeates the food here. Highly recommended.