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Monday, March 26, 2012

Pho King IV

A new pho restaurant opened in the area, and as an avid pho lover, of course I went to give it a try!

For those who don’t know what pho is, here’s a brief description from our good friend Wiki

    "Pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup, usually served with beef (phở bò) or chicken (phở gà). The soup includes noodles made from rice and is often served with Asian basil, mint leaves, lime, and bean sprouts that are added to the soup by the person who is dining. The dish is associated with the city of Hanoi, where the first phở restaurant opened in the 1920s."

My personal pho favourites are pho dac biet (mixed beef meat w/tendon & tripe), bun bo hue (spicy beef noodles w/pig knuckle & coagulated blood), and bun rieu (noodles in a tomatoe broth w/crab meat, tofu, coagulated blood, and shrimp/fish paste).

Some of the reviews of yelp rate this restaurant as poor, but I see those reviewers as just being too critical. The flaws they picked on were running out of inventory and service. True, you’d be nit picky about those sort of things if the restaurant were in business for over a few months, but this restaurant had just opened.

Pho King IV is a branch from another popular pho restaurant in Sacramento, Pho King II, so I’m pretty sure the owners know the typical amount of inventory they need to keep in stock, but the city this restaurant is nestled in is filled to the brim with hungry college students. Also, with a very limited number of other pho places in town, I’m sure many were eager to try something new, meaning business must have been non-stop busy all day long! The restaurant probably just wasn’t expecting the such a huge influx in demand during opening day.

Now for the service, even if the owners aren’t new to the restaurant business, it was pretty obvious most of the servers were. Only one or two experienced servers came from the Sacramento restaurant, but the other servers are just college students that were recently hired. To be honest, the service is pretty disorganized right now as the servers are new to their work. However, once they start gaining experience, they’ll probably become more organized as well. You can’t expect a newbie to know everything right of the bat, right?

One of the complaints about the restaurant just got me. One yelp reviewer complained about their waitress not knowing/understanding the order when the reviewer tried to order in Vietnamese. Ohemgee, are you serious? Just because you work at a Chinese restaurant doesn’t mean you know that ”feng zhao”=chicken feet or ”chow fan”=fried rice, does it? I see that particular complaint as just plain ignorant and somewhat racist, even if they are Asian themself.

Another reviewer complained about tacky decor. Show me a pho restaurant that didn’t have tacky decor, lol.

Well, enough about that, on to the food!


I went with a friend during the evening of opening day. We had been working on homework together since the afternoon and were pretty famished. When we approached the entrance of the restaurant, we could see it was jam packed! There was also a pretty decent line of people waiting for a table even though it was a little past dinner time already (about 8:30pm, I believe?) Well, it’s opening day, so what’d you expect?

At first I wasn’t too sure if we should wait in line, but since the line wasn’t flowing out the door and with our desire to try some pho, we decided to go ahead and wait inside. Luckily, we got in just in time! About 5 min after, the owner had to stop letting in anymore customers, even though there was still an hour & a half until closing, because they were running low on inventory.

Some photos taken while waiting.




We actually didn’t have to wait very long, and got seated about within 15 minutes.

The restaurant is pretty small, but has two stories to provide enough seating. The downstairs looks like it’s only for smaller parties, while the upstairs has a few tables for larger parties.

I managed to quickly snap this photo of right before the waitress went to finish wiping up the table.

That’s how the downstairs tables are decorated.

We got seated upstairs, which looks like this. (These two photos were taken after we were done eating, around 10:00pm. We were the only two left upstairs, hence the empty tables)

More seating for small groups

Tables for large groups

The menu

I ordered bun bu hue, while my friend ordered pho dac biet. The servers forgot to give us our plate of greens, and it was a little difficult to flag down someone, since they didn’t come upstairs too often. I was able to get someone about 15 min after receiving my food though, and she came back with the greens pretty quickly.

My friend didn’t really care about adding greens.

I myself, HAVE to have the greens, or it just feels like I’m eating an incomplete pho.

Pho dac biet

Bun bu hue

It turns out they forgot the pork blood from my bun bo hue, but I only noticed towards the end. I also wasn’t sure if they just didn’t offer it, since I didn’t remember seeing it on the menu. I’m a bit disappointed about that, since I really like pork blood.themoticon-7 At least I know now for next time.

The bun bu hue was still mega yummies. The noodles were a great chewy texture, and a good amount of meat despite the lack of pork blood.

My friend ordered the Vietnamese iced coffee as well. Looks super yums, and I wanna try sometime. I just had a free can of Pepsi. Free soda for the first two weeks!


I went again the following weekend with my parents, and we ordered spring rolls and egg rolls for appetizers.


I ordered the pho dac biet this time, which was really good (as my friend had also claimed, although pho novice). My bowl was filled with meat, which is always a plus.

Again, the service was somewhat disorganized. We ordered the shrimp & grilled pork spring rolls, but were given pork only spring rolls. My mom said it was okay, since both are the same price anyway.

The staff still needed to get their greens out properly. A newbie hire was trying to figure out were to place plates of greens and gave one to a table that hadn’t even ordered yet!

Usually in pho restuarants, it’s the server who took your order that gives you your greens, since they know what your’re eating and there’s different greens for different types of pho. It’s only been the first week though and need to give them at least a months time to sort things out.


Both times I went, I had a large bowl, but needed to pack half of the pho home. Just shows how filling the size of the servings are!

Despite the lack in service, I still have high hopes for Pho King IV. The servers can easily improve with experience, but the food is delish and Pho King IV is a great addition to a small college town.

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