Pho Thin
For an afternoon snack, I had a bowl of pho from Pho Thin in the CBD, also on Hardware Lane. Pho Thin (Pho Thin 13 Lo Duc) is a Pho restaurant from Hanoi, and their location in Melbourne was their first one outside of Asia - there is also now a location in Westminster, CA and also Sydney.
Pho Thin specializes in Northern style pho, which is distinguished vis-a-vis its Southern variant by a lighter, less sweet broth, the lack of an herb plate and bean sprouts, and the use of wider rice noodles vs rice vermicelli. I personally prefer the Northern style a bit and there aren’t that many northern style pho places where I live in SF.
Condiments included fish sauce, hot sauce, pepper, and pickled garlic. A lime wedge and red chili peppers also came with my bowl.
Pho thin is known for its stir fried beef pho, in which beef is seasoned and flash fried with scallions before adding to the bowl of broth and noodles. So that’s what I had. This was a delicious bowl of pho. The stir fried beef was tender and had some garlic flavor along with the thick sliced scallion. The broth was very nice and not sweet.
