Located at 330 Hwy 7 East in Richmond Hill

I really wasn’t a fan of this restaurant, but I’ll blog about it anyway.  Pho Hoang Kim is one of the many restaurants that’s situated in the Highway 7 & Chalmers Road plaza that also houses the popular Sapporo Sushi, delicious Ho Shin Tang, and Saigon Star, among other restaurants.  I was in the mood for some comfort food and a bowl of pho was definitely it.

We walked into the restaurant on a weekday during the late afternoon lunch hours and the restaurant was empty save for one person.  It seems as though they are in the middle of a renovation as an entire chunk of their restaurant’s floors has been entirely ripped up and devoid of any tables or chairs.  The rest of the three-quarters of the restaurant was functional though.  One thing I really didn’t like was how every time the kitchen had finished preparing a dish, they rang a bell so that the server would know to deliver it to our table.  This bell was SO loud.  It was like an obnoxious doorbell… I jumped every time it rang.

The restaurant itself seemed very run-down and outdated

We ordered spring rolls — a staple appetizer to order at a Viet restaurant it seems, a bowl of the house pho, and a bowl of curry goat vermicelli soup.  Unfortunately, the only good dish were the spring rolls.  Everything else was very disappointing and sub-par in quality.  The restaurant speaks for itself when you see little to none customers inside.  I kind of had a feeling that the restaurant wouldn’t be that great before I stepped in, but I really did want to try it out.  Now that I have, it’s going to be impossible for me to return.  There are way too many other restaurants in the same plaza that I can go to instead!

The spring rolls were very crispy and steaming hot.  I liked them since they tasted pretty good as well.

Spring Rolls. $4.75

The “special beef noodle soup” arrived in a nice big bowl.  However, even though the soup was fairly hot, the slices of beef were overcooked and not sliced thinly enough for my taste.  The beef balls were also not only cut in half, but they were cute into quarter-sized pieces… who does that?  The supposedly “fresh thick noodles” were also not fresh.  I have had much better pho elsewhere.

Special Beef Noodle Soup (large). $7

The “curry goat vermicelli soup” was also disappointing.  The curry in the soup wasn’t thick enough; it was kind of watery.  The vermicelli was cut up and there actually wasn’t enough in the bowl itself.  The lamb pieces were so-so.  Nothing too memorable.

Curry Goat with Vermicelli Soup. $7.25

All in all, if you haven’t had good pho before, this is a relatively okay place to visit since you wouldn’t know the difference between good or bad pho dishes…