Pho Leicester

Pho! In Leicester!

I was so so excited to find out Pho was moving to Leicester, taking over the space previously occupied by the World Buffet (see ya). For those who don’t know, Pho is a small chain of family-owned Vietnamese restaurants located in several large cities throughout England. They have loads of vegan-friendly dishes and the food is delicious and plentiful (I’ve visited a couple locations in London).

We went on opening night, which I realise is a bit unfair for a review, but rest-assured it was all good. On their opening weekend they were offering 50% off all dinners (not including booze), and as you can imagine it was hugely popular. We arrived just before 6pm and there was already a queue out the door – which, much like our bellies, swelled as we ate. Luckily for us the wait wasn’t long, and we were seated by the big windows and looked after promptly. When asked about drinks, I did enquire if they had vegan beers, but they were unsure. Armed with our smart phones, we were able to do a quick google search to find out which ones were vegan-friendly (apparently they all are).

Despite the fact that there are several different vegan options, we all ended up getting the same thing – summer rolls for starters and the spicy pho with bun noodles and mushrooms for our mains. The boys also had tofu added to theirs.

The rolls came out a few minutes before the mains, and were delicious. Served with a lovely peanut dipping sauce, they were just how you want summer rolls to taste – fresh, crunchy veggies with noodles in a soft rice paper wrap.

The mains were next and they consisted of large, steaming bowls of noodles and fresh vegetables. They put extra mushrooms in mine, which I didn’t order, but who am I to complain about such a happy mistake. They did forget Andrew’s tofu though so had to take it back to the kitchen to add some in.

The soups were lovely. They were spicy as is, but if you want it hotter you can add in some sliced chillies or sriracha to really kick it up a notch. My bowl felt never-ending. Even so, I managed to finish nearly all of it. I did leave a lot of the broth however – it was much too oily for my liking. I’ve had this soup before and it doesn’t normally come this oily (that I remember), so I’m hoping it was a one-off. But the flavours were on point.

In all, we left the meal feeling fat and happy. I hope this restaurant does well as it is definitely going into my roster of places to visit in the city centre. If you want a place to get a spicy soup to warm up your bones during the coming colder months, this is the place to go.