Samuel S.
Yelp
There comes an unspoken loyalty to your local Vietnamese restaurant. Names may change, renovations turn interiors dental-suite gray, fish tanks empty and eventually retire, your favorite dish might fall off the menu. But whether you're cold, congested, hungover, heartbroken, or anemic-- there is almost nothing quite like the cleansing power of hot phở broth coursing through your being to remedy the weariness you carry.
With the name/ownership change from Pho Mai to Pho Rex that occurred sometime after 2022, my local Vietnamese restaurant had its own menu shakeup. Out with some of my old faves-- Vermicelli with Chicken Curry (RIP ), Crispy Chicken Leg Quarter w/ Broth On Side (we hardly knew ye )-- and in with a couple concessive pan-Asian expansions with Udon and Pad Thai.
But with shifting tides came a new, (literally) eye-catching addition to their phở menu: the Back Ribs. The bone-in premise led to messier fingers and more used napkins than usual, but I can't deny the novelty of the carvinorous presentation (which inspired two freshly-stoned patrons walking by our table to turn their heads and nod in approval). While the post-broth afterglow was nourishing like all great phởs that've come before, my curiosity for this particularly flashy phở was unsparingly satisfied.