Pho Chu The

270 Victoria St, Richmond
Phone: 9427 7749

For those of you readers who follow mt on twitter, it might stagger you beyond belief that I have not actually reviewed Pho Chu The before. Indeed it was a surprise to myself when I recently met up with friends for some pho that I had actually neglected to blog about Chu The up until that point.

Perhaps it was not wanting to make the perennially popular pho joint even more famous; because it’s hard enough to get a seat in there on weekend lunchtimes, or some evenings. Anyway, when Mr E came down from Canberra, I met up with him, Ms T and Ms G to show him what pho in Melbourne is about. He’d recently returned from a holiday Viet Nam, armed with my map of Saigon hotspots, so I guess the lack of good pho (or so I’m told) in Canberra was felt all the more keenly.

As always, I ordered the pho bo dac biet. As always, the broth was wonderfully spiced; the anise and cardamom singing out against a solid background of beefiness. Yes, there was detectable MSG action, but that’s a part of good pho broth, in my estimation. It wasn’t over-the-top, which is what matters.

I’m not going to go into too much detail, as you’ve all heard me wax lyrical about pho before. Suffice it to say that Chu The serves up a reliably good version of the life-force sustaining soup noodle, and there’s a reason it’s on the top of my list of places to recommend for pho in Richmond.