London,

Pho

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Cuisine: Vietnamese

86 St John Street, EC1M 4EH

Nearest Tube: Barbican/Farringdon

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Siobhan Murphy, Metro

 

Description: "Pho is the future", say fans of this Vietnamese noodle-outfit in Clerkenwell, which benefits from "personable" service and "good-value" prices; a new branch opened in Fitzrovia in late-2007.

Food:    Service:    Ambience:   

Phone: 020 7253 7624
Website: http://www.phocafe.co.uk

Good for: Good food, Ambience.

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Try using your noodle at Pho

 

Bright and basic: of the two Phos, the St John Street branch has more of a neighbourhood vibe

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• Pho uses its noodle

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The clustered Vietnamese restaurants at the bottom of Kingsland Road offer perhaps the best-value dining in all London. For ridiculously cheap prices you can get remarkably good food.

There's plenty of choice, too, in Little hanoi, as some people want to call it. Viet Grill (58 Kingsland Road) and Loong Kee Cafe (134 Kingsland Road) both come highly recommended.

Last weekend we tried lunch at the recently renovated Mien Tay, formerly Thang Loi (122 Kingsland Road, e2, 020 7729 3074) and were captivated by the place. There's a fearsomely long menu here, running into such exotica as "goat" and "frog and eel", but we ordered conservatively and were well rewarded. Squid with garlic and salt made a delicious starter, as did a quartered quail, spicily marinated and irresistible to pick up and eat with the fingers. Steamed sea bass was a big, beautifully cooked whole fish, served on a platter, swimming in an enjoyable soy-flavoured sauce.

Despite over-ordering on other dishes, the bill still came to just £30, considerably less than a mediocre gastropub and for these ingredients a great bargain. The restaurant is not licensed but there's a friendly offy a few yards away and no corkage. Iced tap water is brought to the table, with free prawn crackers, as you arrive. The service was particularly courteous, and smiling, too.

And yet ... Despite the proximity of Dalston's middle-class resort, the Geffrye Museum, this section of Kingsland Road remains a peculiarly desolate destination, just too far from the centre of town for most occasions.

Pho offers a short, approachable menu of Vietnamese street food in an entirely Westernised ambience. The first branch opened in the gastro-core of Clerkenwell in 2005; there's now another in the backstreets behind Oxford Circus. It is, in effect, a mini Vietnamese-styled Wagamama - but cheaper, and in some ways better, now that Wagamama has lost its soul to corporate profiteering.

The decor is basic - rather sticky composite-wood tables adorned with sauce bottles, plastic chairs, bright lighting. In Great Titchfield Street the atmosphere seems a bit anonymous and transient; in Clerkenwell there's much more a feel of a neighbourhood place, creating a happier vibe.

Pho is a one-dish meal of rice noodles in a long-simmered broth with different cuts of beef added - slices of rare steak, slow-cooked brisket and meatballs, in different combinations. Or it can be chicken-based. herbs, lime and bean sprouts are served on the side so you can customise your own dish, as well as jiggering it up with chilli, hoisin or fish sauce.

It's not an ancient recipe, apparently originating in the early 20th century, perhaps as a Vietnamese take on French "pot-au-feu", but it is just a wonderfully appetising and satisfying way to eat. The stocks here, very delicately spiced with star anise and other seasonings, are first-rate, rich yet fresh, really aromatic, and pho altogether is low-fat and feels not just perfectly healthy but properly restorative. If you're hungry, you can doggedly down all the noodles, but if you don't, you can make it quite a skinny dish, too.

The phos cost from £6.45 (Pho Ga, chicken breast with chicken stock) to £7.95 (Pho Bo Dac Biet, steak, brisket and meatballs) and they are really all you need for a meal. A starter of Banh Xeo Tom Ga (£5.95), described as a crêpe filled with prawns, chicken and beansprouts, was good, though hardly a crêpe - some crisply fried rice flour batter provided a nice crunchy element to wrap up in a lettuce leaf with the other contents. A summer roll with prawns (Goi Cuon Tom, £3.75) was cold, with a sticky texture, fresh tasting but overpowered by mint.

The other main courses just aren't as clean-tasting and good as the pho. A dish of lemongrass beef with noodles, also containing a deep-fried vegetarian spring roll and another of lemon-grass chicken, both seemed your average oriental stir-fry: acceptable, not special. There's a short list of puddings, too - banana fritter, sorbets, ice creams - but there seems little likelihood that you'll have much inclination, if you've seen off a full pho.

With a bottle of strong and tarry Spanish red (Leganza Crianza, £12.95) and a couple of phos, two could be out of here, more than satisfied, for £30. There are no frills (cheap and rather splintery chopsticks, for example). And, yes, it's no more than a cleverly customised take on Vietnamese food, gastronomically no match for the real thing on Kingsland Road. But if you're hungry and happy to be with who you're with, you can have a great time at Pho, as cheap as it gets.

Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.

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