Located at 20 Apple Creek Boulevard in Markham

During our one-hour lunch break from the WebCenters training with Greg, we drove across the street to where Pho Pad Thai was.  It’s a restaurant in the same plaza as Hong Kong Style Cafe and Mi-Ne Sushi and is run by Chinese people.

We sat in a table of four on this Saturday afternoon and the place was fairly packed.  

The place wasn’t as packed when we left

We all got the Special Pho but whereas the guys all got the large bowl, I had the small one. 🙂  Smaller stomach.

Special Beef Noodle Soup (small). $6.95
-flank brisket, rare beef, tripe, tendon beef balls

Here’s the picture!  I asked for the fresh pho noodles.  At first bite, I wasn’t thoroughly impressed with the taste and texture of the pho, but I later really enjoyed the smoothness of it.

The raw beef was too thick for my taste but the beef tendon was really good.  The beef balls were very tiny and too rough in texture.  The tripe was cut very thin but wasn’t soft and hard to chew down.  The broth was okay too.

Chinese-styled

Overall, this review of the pho I had there was better than I expected.  The rest of the guys seemed to really like the pho though.

I will have to return another time to try their other Thai and Viet dishes!

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Just like I said I would, I did return for a second visit so that I could give a better review of this restaurant.  I came here with my mom and we ordered another bowl of small Special Beef Noodle Soup (so she could try), and also Vermicelli with spring roll, minced shrimp on sugar cane, and chicken/pork/beef.

Special Beef Noodle Soup (small). $6.95
-flank brisket, rare beef, tripe, tendon beef balls

The Special Beef Noodle Soup didn’t taste as good as the first time.  One important difference is that the beef balls were cut into half!  I don’t like it when Chinese restaurants do this.  Beef balls are already cheap enough.  Why do you have to cut it down even further?

Vermicelli:  I love this kind of dish and it really intrigued me when the menu mentioned that rice paper would be included as part of every vermicelli dish!  I had never had it this way before!  Usually, the Viet vermicelli that I have is in a bowl and the toppings are layered on top and you eat it all together.

Spring Roll, Minced Shrimp on Sugar Cane, and Beef with Vermicelli. $12.75

Rice paper fun!

When this dish arrived, it was massive!  It was like an appetizer platter and the rice paper was placed very ingeniously on plastic trays for each piece of rice paper.  This ensured that each piece of rice paper was separated from the others to avoid sticking together and so that you could place the toppings into the tray to roll up the rice paper.  It was really fun to eat this way!  I loved it!

The best part was that the vermicelli was the real deal kind where it was super soft and also flavourful too.  I loved wrapping the toppings into the rice paper (that was sticky enough to hold it all together like a small burrito).  Yum! 😀