Restaurants

Pho Clement 2 in San Francisco

Every neighborhood in San Francisco has great local cafes and restaurants for quick meals.  Truly, living in San Francisco means you can eat as much cheap and “fast food” as you like, only it doesn’t have to be McDonalds.  With a huge Asian population, a great fast food is a hot bowl of pho noodles, however this time we not only tried a dry noodle salad instead of our standard bowl of rice noodles – but we also forgot to tell the server and got a big dose of MSG. Read More »

Pho Garden - Great Outer Richmond Spot

I love noodles and last month I wrote about a favorite pho noodle house. Yesterday we discovered a new place for lunch and delicious savory noodles and cold beer.  Pho Garden is a very clean and fresh looking place, and its look matched the freshness of the wonderful bowl of seafood pho that we both had.  Lots of fresh and clean tasting fish in abundance. Yum!

Our stomachs were very happy because the freshness of the fish is sometimes questionable at other local spots we walked into before. We were not disappointed this time but pleasantly surprised. The noodles had a very tasty broth served piping hot. 

My husband was in the mood for a beer, and the waiter came over and mentioned that he was “out of 33 beer”.  “It was caught up in customs!”  My husband chose a Stella.  Not your typical Asian beer, but crisp and clean, to go with his seafood noodles.  He asked the waiter to make sure that his beer was ice cold.  Our waiter brought out a very frosty bottle and a frozen mug.  ”You can’t get it any colder than this!” he proclaimed.  ”I’m a beer drinker too, so I know how it’s best,” he added. My husband was a very happy man.

Coldest Beer and Hottest Noodles

The pho and consistency of the noodles was very good, and since we both ordered the same dish, I will be going back again to give you an update on other dishes off of their menu.  The location is way out there, but they try very hard.  And actually, in this part of the Outer Richmond neighborhood they are close to the local 4 Star Theater, an independent movie theater that shows a lot of cool alternative movies with many from Hong Kong.

If you live in the area or plan to see a movie in the neighborhood, Pho Garden is definitely worth a stop. We’re certainly going to try them again.

2109 Clement St
San Francisco, CA 94121
(415) 379-8677
www.phogardensf.com

Open Everyday 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. Except Wednesdays.

Red Awning Helps a lot

The temperature has still been cold still around here.  I find myself choosing soup and noodle places for lunch again and again. Here in San Francisco, we have lots of noodle places to choose from – like Sapporo-ya in Japantown – but one of the best Vietnamese noodle shops has got to be Pho Huynh Hiep 2, also known as Kevin’s Noodle House. It is on a really busy street but you can find it by the bright red awning over the front window.

This is one of my favorite lunch spots in the city for hot and savory bowls of noodles – “pho” real. Pho noodles are delicious Vietnamese rice noodles that in come in different sizes.

Kevin’s Noodle House runs four noodle shops around the Bay Area so you have no excuse not to try some for lunch or dinner. You can spend less than $10 for a huge bowl or get something smaller and share appetizers like the fried shrimp cakes.

Fried Shrimp Cakes

What a so great about coming here is that the servings are always generous, and you can tell they have a solid reputation because the flow of people is constant. And we have been here at various times of the day and day of the week – yet we always are taking one of the last small free tables when we arrive.

Be ready to customize your choice with: a choice of egg or rice noodles; wide, thin or paper thin noodles; three different size bowls too. There are lots of condiments to add based on whether you have a cold or are hung over (or that might be just be my criteria).

The best way to start any meal though is with an order of their fish cakes – so tasty and unique. You can’t go wrong with any of their selections but some of the best dishes we have tried over the years are the seafood noodle soup and the beef tendon or the soup with flank steak.

1833 Irving St
San Francisco, CA 94122
(415) 664-0469

Photos credit to Kevin’s Noodle House.

Locations in Daly City, Oakland and Concord too!
www.kevinsnoodlehouse.com