On Friday night I caught up with 2 good friends of mine - the decision for dinner was left up to me so I threw out some suggestions and amongst them was Pho Sam at Epping. It's a little hole in the wall Vietnamese noodle bar in Epping and I walk past it every Wednesday afternoon to work (which is right next door to Sweetness the Patisserie.....fabulous marshmallows......more on that in another post though!!). Funnily enough I only noticed Pho Sam a few weeks ago even though it's been there for years.
Laura, Liz & I headed to the noodle bar and it was pretty packed, so that's always a good sign. It's nothing flash on the inside, but sometimes, those are the best kind of places!!
We sat down and the waitress handed us menus which has a large selection of noodles in soup, laksas, meat dishes and rice dishes and also gave us a warm jug of tea. A different waitress comes back to us, quite quickly I might add (we hadn't even really opened the menus at this point), to take our order and we asked for a few more minutes. Her reply?? I want this table back in an hour. Umm. Ok. If they needed the table back in an hour, that's fine, but there's certainly more polite ways to state it!! And we'd made a booking too.....anyway.
We ordered Spring Rolls with Vermicelli to share $8.00. These came out with a sweet & spicy dipping sauce and were packed full of meat and vegetables along with a bowl of vermicelli, carrot, cucumber, lettuce, bean sprouts and mint.
Laura ordered Combination Stir Fried Noodles (with rice noodles if I remember correctly) $12.80. It came out steaming hot and it was an absolutely HUGE serve. There were plump, juicy prawns and plenty of good quality chicken breast in the dish too. Very generous on the vegetables and noodles too.
Liz ordered the Crispy Chicken with Tomato Rice $9.00. I had read good things about this dish on eatability and it didn't disappoint. The skin was crisped to perfection and the chicken underneath was deliciously juicy. Sometimes cripy skin chicken can be reaaaaally dry, but this was perfect!! The rice was really nice too, the tomato added a zing to it which plain steamed rice lacks.
I ordered Ginger & Shallot with Chicken $12.00. Again, the serving was huge with crisp snow peas, carrots, baby corn and chicken breast in a sauce laced with ginger and shallot. Check out the amount of chicken in that baby!!
It was a delicious dinner and even though the waitress told us we had to be out in an hour, I think we were there longer, and there were tables that were available anyway so maybe we had just walked in at a peak time for them. I think we will definitely be going back for dinner - and I will certainly keep them in mind for dinners on a Wednesday night when I'm at work!!
After dinner we went on a bit of a drive for dessert - I'll tell you about that next time!!
Pho Sam Vietnamese Noodle House
14 Oxford Street, Epping 2121 (opposite Post Office)
Ph: 9869 0499
2 comments:
Oh yes there's definitely a nice way to let diners know about time limits. Although it is good that they didn't end up hurrying you out! :)
"I want this table back..."?!
Just because they're busy, that is no way to talk to your customers! You're way too nice to just shrug them off like that!
Okay, so apart from the service, they do have really good pho.
MUCH, much better than the one at the Genesis apt.
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