Nom Nom Noodles

Excellent fresh food. Great value for sit in and take away. Don’t change, open one in Glasgow!

I don’t know much about Vietnamese food but I know decent service, food and prices when I experience them and you get all three here. It’s a bit out of the way unless you’re visiting the big Tesco store or the Spring Hill library, so you may have to put in a bit of effort to get there, but especially for groups it’s probably worth it.
Prices are very decent across the board with most mains well under £10. That means you can share several dishes amongst friends without breaking the bank. And that’s probably the best way to experience the options here if you’re as unfamiliar as I am.
I’ve been twice and have to say I was much more impressed first time around. I made different choices for my order, was a chicken/​rice combo of some kind, and just preferred it. This second time I had a chef special, which are sometimes not the best choice I find, of chargrilled chicken with rice. There is a lot on the plate, enough for two, but it was remarkably bland and certainly not ‘special’. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice enough, but the white rice just didn’t do much while the chicken lacked flavour and punch.
The iced lemonade was really good, a tad sweet maybe, but I could have gulped down a couple of those on what was a warm day. Desert was a tasty mix of banana, coconut milk and toasted peanuts.
Worked out around £12 all in, so no complaints there. The service was good though a bit distracted, with the lady spending more time in the kitchen than out front. But I wasn’t in any specific rush. Had I been in a lunchtime spin and needed fast service I may have felt different!

Phở cures all. Phở realz.
It’s a little bit out of the way for me considering that I usually hit up the city centre for things to nosh on. But when I found out that there was a proper Vietnamese restaurant in Birmingham, I couldn’t pass it up. Even though hubs and I took the longer way to get there, I was so glad we did. (Well I was, if you read my profile, one of my favorite foods is phở. Some people can understand and appreciate the healing properties that this simple soup has; some people may just see it as a bunch of noodles with broth and a few pieces of meat. But the broth is seriously, like, elixir for me).
First thing I noticed was that it was empty inside, but that was OK for me. There was a couple who had just finished their meals when we came in and paid their tab. The restaurant was very clean and so was the restroom. I opted for summer rolls and phở tai (phở w/​brisket) while hubster chose chicken phở. Usually at a Vietnamese restaurant, he has a vermicelli bowl/​broken rice with meat, so I don’t know what made him go for phở this time. Whether he paid attention at all to what he ordered was another question. And when the bowls arrived at our table, all I could do was stare. (Not having had phở since December when I went back home to SD has been difficult). My inner self had the biggest cheeseburger grin once the scent of the broth hit my nostrils. The broth was a decent balance of anise and saltiness, and it wasn’t too cloudy or dark either. Brisket was done nicely also. The spring rolls were nice and light also. This is real comfort food, I thought. More people need to experience it.
I wasn’t too fond of the wider noodles used in the phở, so I hope this gets corrected soon. But I think I’ve found my go-​to spot when I need a pick-​me-​up, and I hope other people wanting Vietnamese food will appreciate it too.