Pho Ever

1669 Pear St tel: 250-388-0028 Mon-Sin 1130-9pm  closed Wednesday

spicy soup makes Patty look crazyYou can't beat the name. The first time I went by, the Pho Ever sign had a "Cheap Alcohol" banner appended to it. Sounds great to me.

While easily the source of dumb jokes, the name Pho Ever is hard to extract from your brain. I will spare the jokes.

A combination of Vietnamese and Korean dishes, including a selection of pho (soups), the menu is well constructed with a little something for everyone and prices are very reasonable.

The space is clean and organised with a new renovation and some very nice quality tables and chairs. There is similarly some very swanky looking booths in the back that for lack of a better word, look very VIP. It's not an aesthetic masterpiece by any means (the artwork and colour scheme are not to my taste), but it's comfortable and feels like someone knew what they were doing.

The alcohol selection is limited, but is indeed reasonably priced with domestic and import beers, house wine and soju (Strong Korean wine). Patty had a Korean beer ($5) and I had a domestic beer ($4). building my lunch

We started with the dumplings ($3.95 - 6pcs).  They were tasty - so tasty they may have been made in-house. I could taste distinct seasoning and they weren't especially salty. The were fried, but not greasy and the fryer oil was fresh. The dipping sauce was a conventional ponzu type, but tasted correct with the dumplings.

I had the Bun Thit Nuong, Cha Gla ($8.95), a Vietnamese style vermicelli noodle bowl with pork and spring roll. Fresh, with delicate flavours and crispy julienne cucumber and carrots. The pork was more heavily seasoned and grilled - super yummy. The spring roll, like the dumplings were crispy and flavourful.

Patty had the Jjam Bbong ($9.95) a Korean style spicy seafood soup with noodles. A hefty serving, Patty didn't make it all they way through before the heat got to him. I liked the level of heat, but his head turned a light shade of crimson by the end. Similarly, he was having comical coordination problems, that were causing him to repeatedly splatter soup in his eye. Note the crazy looking expression in the photo - I think that was the soup. Despite his largely self inflicted discomfort he noted a nice seafood soup base, as well as both small blue mussels and a couple of larger green mussels, squid, prawn and shrimp. I like this style of soup especially for brunch, after a festive evening. The hot spicy soup is great for a headache.

The menu also has a fairly thorough selection of  Korean fare, Bip bim bop, Galbi, Bulgogi, Pajun, Dongace, among others at reasonable prices (the menu tops out at $14.95). I'm looking forward to a dinner visit to try some of these dishes.

One final note - they have lots of table condiments. I love that.

Oct 09