Nam Son: The Good, the Bland, and the Fugly

The Good     There are many good thing about the Pho from Nam Son at 245 Grand Street in Chinatown. The meat used in the Pho Tai doesn't seem to be carved off of some frozen block of roast beef purchased at Western Meats. In fact, it's probably the best Eye of Round I have had in any of New York's many Pho joints. It's juicy and tender and doesn't arrive overcooked in the soup. The rice noodles are good too- they are firm and aren't overdone into a gloppy porridge. Properly cooked noodles are easy to cradle with your chopsticks, while overdone ones are often slimy and tend to slip back into the gelatinous mire.

No slippage

A perfect pink

It's difficult to top Nam Son for the meat and the noodles, they seem to do these better than just about everybody else serving Pho in New York. Still, however important these two staples are, there is a third element in the holy trinity of Pho ingredients: The BROTH, which brings us to  
The Bland  On the day we chose to eat at Nam Son, our dreams of Pho grandeur were dashed against the rocks of a lackluster broth. One may say it was even watery, which is generally not a good word to use when speaking of broths.We've probably been to Nam Son over 20 times, and to be fair, we have had much better broth than we had on our last visit. I'm not sure what it was like in the kitchen that day, but I do know that  Nam Son is constantly dishing out Pho, and water is constantly being added to a stock pot concentrated with the flavor of beef bones. A lunch rush can throw the delicate balance of flavors into disarray, especially if the pot isn't given sufficient time to "digest" the added water. Nam Son was busy the day we visited, as it often is, so to this we will chock up the bland stock, which was notably missing a good dash of salt and perilously deficient in star anise.

On another note, it's always nice to receive a heaping plate of vegetables to add to your Pho, but alas here we were disappointed too. No culantro or cilantro and no lime- but the biggest insult was they actually gave us lemons..

What, no lime? Surely you jest!

Limes are important. No one has written a song about eating up a coconut full of lemons. Nobody is dispensing unwanted, pithy advise about what to do when life gives you LIMES. True, there is a disease called Lymes, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the fruit. I don't want a LEMON in my PHO. You just can't create the right tangy/salty balance with a lemon. You can't tell me you are serious about your Pho when you bring me a plate with a lemon on it. I'll end this rant here; suffice is to say that every time I receive a lemony vegetable plate with my Pho I die a little....

Ian, deeply hurt and limeless

The Fugly Although we always enjoy dining at Nam Son, recently we made a discovery that was downright fugly.  The price of a bowl of Pho at Nam Son, averaging about $5.50, is generally in-line with what the rest of the Vietnamese restaurants are charging- unless you want the big bowl. For experienced Pho eaters like myself, this isn't even a choice, I always order the larger portion primarily for one very simple reason.... you get MORE. Also, sometimes its a little tough to work with a smaller bowl, I believe the Germans called this "Lebensraum", or "living space". Although I don't need to invade the Czech Republic, or even annex Austria, I do need my "Pholebensraum". Most restaurants will charge only a dollar and sometimes two for this privilege, but at Nam Son they actually charge DOUBLE for this. That means the price of my bowl of delicious Pho is creeping into Ramen territory.  Nam Son, when your broth is Good , your bowl of Pho is unmatched in Manhattan, but when it's watery and Bland like it was on our last visit, and when the price for a big bowl is four dollars more than it should be, AND you give us lemons, well, that's just Fugly.