If you ever find yourself up in Echo Park or Silverlake, take some time to stop by the Pho Cafe off Sunset Blvd. This place is nondescript, doesn’t have any signage outside, but this place is wildly popular, especially among hipsters. It’s a small place, small menu, but the flavors are big.

The menu selection is basically, appetizers, drinks, Pho or Bun. Bun is the “cooler” alternative to Pho. All the ingredients you would find in Pho without the hot broth. Today I am joined by a new friend, DM, whom I met recently. This is one of his favorite places to eat.

Tonight, we both have the same thing. D opts for iced tea, while I have a soda.

We started off with the spring rolls. Char-broiled beef with shrimp and fresh vegetables wrapped in a delicate rice paper skin. The peanut sauce is tasty, with just the right amount of peanut taste and not “peanut buttery”. The beef in the roll is tender and little effort is needed when biting into the spring roll.

For our entree, we both have the Bun with the lemongrass beef. The bowl arrives and has two fried egg rolls on top with a good sized portion of lemongrass beef on top of rice noodles (vermicelli). The beef is cooked just right so that each bite is like biting into butter. The egg rolls aren’t greasy and they “score” them with 2 notches in the rolls for easy handling with the chopsticks.

I will definitely be returning here, especially if I end up finding myself hanging out in Echo Park more often! :)

Thanks for hanging out tonite D. It was a welcome distraction from the waiting room at the hospital.

Pho Cafe
2841 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90026
Tel. 213.413.0888

 
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