Pho Hong Long

Checked in here by accident meant to put viet huong restaurant a little down the street (*_​*)

I cant say many good words about this place.

I want to tell you, I am a Phở aficionadifico from way back into Octobre 2010. I have tasted a bunch. This one comes with a skim of animal grease on top, and if you let it get cool or put ice with it, it will harden into little plastic manteca balls. Not good. This will coat your mouth and not feel like a fresh meal.
Also, I start to wonder, because I have been making soup with my grandmother since a girl, and if you cook the bone on heat for too long, the fat gets bad and has a characterixtic taste of old fat left open to the air. This soup has that. It probably will not kill you or make you sick, but it will make you wonder about how many days this soup has been in the pot.
The purple basil they brought was wilted so much I wandered if it had been brought out several times that day and recycled. I was also disoppointed in the chicken amount and quality. They should not allow the joints to come in.
The server girl was really nice and spoke perfect English, so I wanted to mention that too.

Unlike most Vietnamese restaurant serving the southern Vietnam style clear beef broth phở, Hong Long serve a traditional Northern Vietnam style Phở soup which is more darker in color and heavier in the spice flavor.
When I first walk into the restaurant, a strong smell of beef broth rushed to my nose and the smell cover every corner in the restaurant. This is a good sign that the soup was cooked with quality beef bone, meat and spices. Such broth requires long hours of simmering and cooking. I ordered the beef short rib phở and the taste of the soup correspond with the aroma of beef flavor. The short ribs was slow cooked perfectly as the bone was easily separated from the meat. In the same time the meat itself wasn’t too tough to chew on and not too tender like over cooked beef stew.
The soup is more oily than the other Vietnamese restaurant phở, and I felt the beef oil enhance the aroma of the soup. Some Vietnamese friends even request an extra bowl of beef oil on the side because they want to refill the oil as they drank up the soup. They all said the beef oil make phở more delicious. It would be a huge turn off for health concerned folks.
I would give them 5 stars if they offer more traditional Vietnamese appetizers. Maybe they concentrate for make phở only and don’t care those spring rolls kind of side dish.
By the way, the map shows on Unilocal is wrong. Hong Long is on Garvey, not on Santa Anita as it shows on the map.

Tried going to Phở Huynh but that place was closed tonight so we tried this place. Huge mistake, should have driven to King Taco instead. This place was empty and that should have been a big red flag, but the whole shopping mall was dead.
The food was bland and the meat wasn’t fresh and my cup of ice had a long strand of hair in it which was a major turn-​off. It would kill any rating. I almost barfed.

Knowing I had a possible big dinner here:
, I figured t’was safe to bypass lunch. Unfortunately after wrenching for 3 hrs, my brain took my ass to school and rebelled. What resulted was a mediocre bowl of phở 3 hours before my spicy date with bunshik.
Kudos to PHL for having some crazy looking phở (notice spicy short rib phở, fish phở, etc.) Kudos for a gigantic mound of noodles. Boo to greasy soup topped with massive amounts of fat globules. Boo to soup stinginess.
Signage notes 1 (seen yesterday): just as I suspected, related to location in Gardena & Garden Grove.
Signage notes 2: went back due to neon sign stating: «dac biet bo 7 mon». Cept it’s not lit. And they don’t serve it. FAIL.
Writing this because Yuko mentioned Phở Hong Long’s broth being too greasy this morning. Her feeling’s echoed at this branch as well.
Grand opening weekend of ⁵⁄₁₇ and another obscure Garvey V-​joint knocked down…