Pho 501

Diamond in the rough. A chefs dream spot for simplicity but great food.

Greet family run Restaurant very fresh ingreediants

This place is… Dynamite! Broth is so clean yet flavorful… You can taste the love! Service is awesome. THE BEST!

The menu is small however we have always had a great meal. Everyone is friendly and rarely an empty seat. We haven’t sampled all of what they offer. It depends on the day. Try the sesame balls for dessert. Warm them up in the toaster oven and squish flat to enjoy.
If you like spicy I suggest a small dish of satay, roasted red chilies and cayenne for your phở. I put so much in mine today I needed a squirt of hoisin sauce.

One cannot go wrong with this place! The shrimp phở was delicious! Very reasonably priced, friendly staff/​owners. Super busy, packed and clean. Awesome! I would go back again and again and again!

Very good Phở, had a large bowl of Shrimp Phở on a cold Saturday night. Went in at 5:30pm, no line and tables were available. Ample parking. The Phở was good, hot, and satisfying. I would say their menu is quite limited– beef, shrimp, or combo phở. Nothing else for Saturday night. No appetizers, nothing.
Overall, very good and will be going back during the week when they have Spring Rolls.

I had my first genuine authentic bowl of Phở yesterday. I ate here with a group who had been to this place before. We arrived at the restaurant just before noon and were fortunate to get a table for the 6 of us. The place had a line of people waiting to be seated during the whole hour or so we were there. I ordered a medium bowl of beef Phở. It quickly arrived, piping hot and smelling wonderful. I added the bean sprouts, Sriracha and basil. The broth was delicious, the thinly sliced beef was tender, the bean sprouts were fresh and crunchy and the noodles just right. The total combination, fantastic. Even with the noise and commotion of a busy lunch time crowd, I thoroughly enjoyed eating this bowl of simple yet so satisfying soup. Will definitely go back.
Parking lot is tight. Bring a compact car if you can.

Let me be clear, this is the best B-​hue around, and when I say «around» I mean on the east coast. I live in Boston, have eaten phở in New York and Philly (known for it’s Vietnamese community) and everywhere in between and this hue is on a different level. Get here before 11 on a Saturday and you should be in good shape to get some of the last remaining hue available.

Extremely good. After tried this place, I can hardly find phở tasty in any other restaurant. So deep and unveatable quality. Every Saturday, they serve spicy beef phở and I heard many people love it but my preference is on regualr beef :)

Just good, simple phở. As others have noted you only have two choices (beef or shrimp) but you can’t go wrong with either. We got ours to-​go and they offered to give us the broth cold with all the meat and accoutrements in separate containers (so they don’t get soggy). Heat the soup up at home, throw in the raw meat, noodles, etc., let it cook and you’re good to go.
Can’t wait to go back and dine in.

If you are looking to try Phở soup this is the place. The are 2 places in East Hartford and this is the spot to go. You can tell that it’s good by the line out the door and the tough time parking. It’s not a fancy place, but it’s good.
It all starts in the broth and there’s is delicious. I did try the other Phở place in East Hartford and it was only ok. Phở 501 only serves soup and spring rolls and delicious sesame donuts.
Phở 501 is worth the drive from throughout the state, as I had a friend try a place in Wallingford and he like this one much better.

You don’t go to this place for the service or the atmosphere, just the phở. It seems that you’re not even expected to tip, though there is a large tip jar.
That said, I’ve been here a few times and the phở is worth it every time (not that it’s very expensive). I went this time with a Vietnamese friend who raved about this phở and she still enjoyed it. I think she mumbled something about how it used to be better, but I don’t have the experience to back that statement up. That said, I appreciated that the broth was very flavorful and that there was a good amount of beef and noodles in the soup.
Something new I did discover, was that they have fresh soymilk, which I posted a picture of. It’s served over ice and is very refreshing. It’s the asian soymilk flavors though, and a word of warning for those who’ve never had asian soymilk: it does not taste like the Silk brand of soymilk.
Finally, make sure to grab one of the sesame balls before leaving. It’s a hollow ball of deep fried crispy sesame ball goodness, with a smaller ball of coconut paste located inside. I was expecting red bean (which I’m not too fond of), and was very pleasantly surprised the first time I ate this. I’ve gotten it again every time since.

I found the parking lot is a little tricky to get into. You walk in the door and you will notice the interior pretty bare bones, and there are no menus on the table. The owner comes over and asks beef or shrimp. I was confused. I was expecting to be handed a menu, sit down and then browse through the options, but instead there is only one menu and it hangs over the counter. There isn’t much of a choice. Weekdays you get beef or shrimp, and on weekends one type of phở. That’s it! Service is decent. The server did not speak much english, but she was on top of it.
The Phở broth is very flavorful and served nice and hot. The portions range from small to large and humongous and are all reasonably priced according to market. Disappointed because I was looking for a bit more phở variety, specially the meat, but you only get once choice of meat variety. I was expecting more of a traditional vietnamese restaurant, so I would not recommend here if you are craving something in particular.
East Hartford is a bit out of the way for me, but I will always stop by Phở 501 whenever I am in the area. When it when it comes down to phở, Phở 501 is simple and yet very good and for someone who is first trying out phở this an awesome place to start with.
Make sure to grab a sesame ball on your way out. they are really good.

In Hartford for work this week, and after sampling the hotel restaurant last night (I mean, not terrible, but I won’t remember it in a week), was on the look out for something tasty and hopefully inexpensive. What came up on the old Unilocal but Phở 501. Biiiiig giant bowl of phở. Very tasty. Tiny little no B.S. place. Everything was just right, plenty of Srirach and I was mopping my brow by the end of dinner. Only thing that keeps it from being five stars was I like a little bit of choice in the meats — here your choices are small/​medium/​large — and the brisket, while delish, was the only option. But yeah, super good, and a great little find.

This is what phở is all about. I was a skeptic because of my initial phở experience at a place in Wallingford, just didn’t do it for me. My buddies rave about this place so I tagged along. The place is bare bones, what you see is what you get. there was 2 things on the menu, which in most cases is an indication that they are really good at making those 2 things.
Medium beef phở– deep rich broth, and perfectly cooked noodles. A heavy swirl of fish sauce and siracha, a handful of bean sprouts, and a squeeze of lime and I was lovin it.
Ice water– gotta wash down the spiciness!
Sesame dessert ball things– just try one, and give it shake, you wont believe it. Tasty but greasy, reminiscent of chinese food and a donut.
Thats it. just try it!

Insanely good phở for amazingly reasonable prices. Their medium is the size of most other phở places large. I dream about returning here. And they take credit card!

Finally made it here! It was a Sunday so I got the mi ga (chicken soup) to go. This place was packed with about 10 – 12 people waiting for seats. Btw it was about 10:45 am. Yeah… No shit. I ordered it to be fully cooked and ready to be eaten. I opted for boneless chicken, as per Dawn’s tip. It comes with a side of bean sprouts and a side of spicy sauce. I like spicy, so in it went with the sprouts. Mix mix nice nice. This was good. Real good. The soup is very simple, yet complex flavors are present. I really like the small crunchy pieces in there. I think it’s was chicken pieces, nonetheless, it tasted nice. I think it was the first time I’ve had soup so early without being sick. But, I didn’t want to miss out. The spicy sauce wasn’t too hot at all, just right. It made my cheeks sweat a little bit, that’s it. Perfect a out of heat.
Now that I’ve been here, I will be back. With friends and family and show them the way of Phở 501!
Ps– it was $ 8 for a good sized container.

If you´re looking for an authentic bowl of phở, this is your place. During the week they make one or two types of phở, spring rolls and sesame buns. saturdays you can grab bun bo hue and sunday phở ga. I have yet had the bun bo hue because it´s gone by 2pm on Saturdays :[
I am a huge stickler for phở because a lot of restaurants take shortcuts to make their phở and it drives me crazy. as someone who grew up eating phở every weekend, I rarely crave for such a dish, which makes finding a good bowl of phở harder.
tip — if you haven´t had that much phở, go with the small. their medium is the traditional phở restaurant large, their large is the XL (xe lua) size). the parking situation isn´t great so carpooling would help.
I got a medium bowl, jasmine iced tea and spring roll for a little over $ 10 i believe, totally worth it.

Review update:
Their veggies are still wilted and dirty.
I still believe that they should offer more variety. I don’t like brisket in my phở, and the standardize version just does not tickle my fancy. However, the broth is still very good, great great flavor. I’m not a fan of their noodles but that’s just being picky.
Definitely ask for their satay sauce and add it to your phở, it changes everything!
What has surged 501 to 4 stars is their bun bo hue. It’s bomb. Very good, and I’m sad that I discovered it so late. They should definitely consider serving it up daily.
4 stars because it’s pretty good, not my favorite. But 3 stars is just unfair.

Hello — My name is Anne C and until this past weekend I have never had Phở and after my meal at Phở 501 I am a believer once again that if you make something and make something well, you pretty much can run a successful restaurant.
The exterior and interior of Phở 501 does not evoke fine dining by any stretch of the imagination and if you are not careful you might pass by their location BUT it’s not the décor that leads most to Phở 501. It is the phở and if that is what you are looking for you will be treated to a well priced and mighty delicious meal.
I had read previous reviews and bookmarked Dawn O. s as my tutorial so I would appear to know what I was doing — however my fears were quickly vanquished when a young employee, lead us through the ordering process. Small, medium and large sizes are available. The restaurant is BYOB but they have non-​alcoholic beverages for purchase. They only sell chicken on Sunday’s and I was lucky that there was still some left — SCORE! Per Dawn O — I asked for it boneless and added a couple of shrimp.
People came and went — ordering take out and eating in and in less than 5 minutes our meals were brought to us. OMG — beefy broth, luscious noodles, onions and cilantro filled my bowl. Very well seasoned and not salty by any means. Accompanying the Phở was a side of bean sprouts, lime and fresh basil. This is February people — where did they find such fresh basil — not that I am complaining. A little sprout, a little basil, a squirt of lime and a squirt of hoisin sauce and that Phở did not stand a chance. And by the time I went back into the cold February day — my belly and soul were a bit warmer.
At $ 19 for a medium, a large and 2 soda — that’s a deal I will take any day.