[Mountain View, CA] Pho Tran Vu

Never ones to pass up a bowl of soup noodle, we visited the newly opened Pho Tran Vu in Mountain View, in the same mall as Costco.

Overall a couple of meals, we had:

29 House Dac Biet- steak, tripe, flank, brisket, tendon, beef balls, oxtail with soup. Its ok. The broth was quite sweet. I think I preferred Pho Avenue’s broth and Tran Vu’s ingredients. Tran Vu has one piece of oxtail. Overall I prefer Avenue’s bowl slightly. Tran Vu’s large bowl is $15, which is pretty high compared to other pho places.


53 free range pho ga dai with soup. Good bowl. Good quality range yellow feather chicken with bouncy skin. They asked me during ordering whether skins were ok- what kind of a question was that?! :smile: My favorite pho ga in the nearby towns north of San Jose. Save me a trip to Pho Kim Long in San Jose.


128 com tam ga nuong- bbq chicken, bean curd wrapper shrimp paste, shredded pork skin, egg cake, grilled shrimp with broken rice. Of the 5 items on the plate, the bean curd wrapper with shrimp (and pork also I think) stood out and was delicious. The other ones were average.


63 Hu tieu nam vang dry. This is ok. I will stick with the wet pho.


I forgot which dish this is but its not that good. Its recommended by the server. Maybe 200 dac biet hu tieu.

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Basic herb plate with basil, bean sprouts, lemon and jalapeno:

Service was a bit of a mess. Growing pain plus some cluelessness. First visit there, ordered 3 items. They forgot to bring the pho dac biet. Second visit, told me they were closed 40 minutes before closing time. Third visit, brought us a dish that belonged to someone else.

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Maybe they were afraid you were a “Masterchef” and would complain that the chicken skin was not crispy! :laughing:

LOL!

I wonder what prompted them to ask such a question in the first place? That people complaining about the horrors of presence of chicken skins?

That may be the reason why I am not getting the gizzards, livers, etc in this bowl. #Iwantmyentrails

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no-independence-i-want-my-entrails-back

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Ok, they asked about the skins because the non-yellow feather chicken came without skins. Bring on the skins!

I ate there a few more times afterwards. Had the bun rieu and the bun bo hue in separate occasions. Bun bo hue was terrible. Watery broth. I don’t remember much about the bun rieu, but its not good either.

So, just stick to the pho ga yellow feather chicken version.