Quan Hop - Little Saigon
Google “high end pho” with the quotation marks, and you’ll find links to high end pho-tography or high end pho-togrammetry. You’ll find bupkes on Quan Hop’s Vietnamese beef noodle soup with filet mignon. In its most basic form, pho turns humble ingredients into a magical, healing potion cooked with time, love and skill, so no wonder upscale pho doesn’t register on Google’s neural network….yet.
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Despite the well lighted, thoughtfully decorated room, this is not some trendoid restaurant serving overpriced, watered-down fusion Cuisine with a capital C. Pho is not Cuisine. Pho remembers when you fell on your ass in a puddle in third grade and you went crying like a sissy to your Grandma, who changed your wet clothes, and made you all better - with what? You remember - a steaming bowl of pho.
Pho won’t give you shit for driving up in a pimped M3 convertible that you can afford only because you still live at home. Pho will be happy to see you and wants to know how Grandma’s doing.
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| Item #7 - Pho Hop |
Grandma would approve of the deeply beefy broth with flavors that only thick slabs of meaty brisket can add. Beef bones and sinew give up rich collagen over hours of cooking that add body to the broth, and gentle simmering ensures that fats and proteins don’t conspire to cloud its beautifully clear complexion.
Carelessly cooked rice noodles show up in your bowl as a pasty ball of glop at lesser restaurants. Here, the cooks understand that a cold water rinse to rehydrate dried noodles followed by skillful cooking yields perfectly cooked, separate strands.
Only two pho variations exist on a brief menu that covers a few examples each of soup, rice, and noodle dishes. The $5.75 Pho Hop assembles different beef textures in a bowl: tender slices of filet mignon; toothy brisket stewed long enough to break down its tough muscle fibers; firm-yet-gelatinous pieces of beef tendon, dense rubbery meatballs, and chewy bits of tripe. While it’s more expensive than the average in this part of town, the Pho Tai Dac Biet only sets you back a whole six-fiddy, big spender. With this, you get only the filet mignon, and none of the “nasty” bits Grandma loves. You kids these days…
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| Water wall near entrance |
Pho joints in non-Viet neighborhoods tend to skimp on the herbs served on the side. Here, the requisite bean sprouts, spicy royal basil, the cilantro-like, sawtoothed leaves of ngo gai (aka culantro), and fresh lime slices are joined by a separate dish of finely sliced shallots. Shredded scallions add another distinct layer of onion bite to the dish.
While there’s nothing wrong with the food at that run-down dump your old man’s loved since 1978, it’s about time that someone opened a good looking joint in Little Saigon and presented pho with premium ingredients to a savvy audience.
Quan Hop follows Professor Salt’s Restaurant and Bar Rule #1: make young women want to go, and the men will follow. Even Grandma would dig the place, and then your old man would have to rethink his divey joint, wouldn’t he?
Quan Hop
15640 Brookhurst St
Westminster, CA 92683
714-689-0555
January 13th, 2006 at 8:44 am
Looks great. I’m there.
January 13th, 2006 at 9:32 am
Me too. Awesome.
January 13th, 2006 at 11:21 pm
You had me at Ngo Gai…..
January 15th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
Hi Professor Salt,
Just wanted to thank you for this rec- it made a fine Sunday morning breakfast. I coulda sworn I almost ate at a restaurant in this particular location not so many months ago, but for some reason decided not to go in. (Either it was insanely crowded, or completely empty- I’m betting the latter)
Things I noted (when comparing it to my favorite Pho Bolsa): only one size (too small). The meat was definitely a cut above, and the noodles were as nicely done as you say. However, it was either oily or fatty or both, to a degree that we had trouble finishing that third bowl we got for the two of us.
Dare I compare it to a Santoka (for priciness, high quality meat, noodles, and rich broth)?
January 15th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
Ever since I had some bad experiences with pho in elementary school/junior high, I vowed to hate pho. Until I ate at Pho Ca Dao in San Diego a couple weeks ago. And then I realized the hype! the hysteria! the demands! So I jumped at the chance to try Quan Hop today, as its a chilly frigid night. I just came back from eating it and I have to thank you for your recommendation! Both my mom and I tried #13 (can’t recall the name right now) which was the Pho with sliced of Filet Mignon. $6.75, which might be expensive for pho, but was a good, inexpensive meal for me. The meat was so tender and flavorful, and the bowl, although it seemed a little small, was just the right amount. It is deceptive in size because I couldn’t even finish all the broth off! As the person above noted, it may be small, but really, do Americans need to eat THAT much? We’re all already obese anyway. (;
Anyway.. the broth was so tasty and delicious that after we had paid and my mom was walking out the door, I was still at the table, trying to slurp up as much as my stomach could hold.
Thanks for the rec!
January 15th, 2006 at 10:42 pm
Julian, Grace: I’m glad you both came away pleased. I purposely posted this on Friday so folks would have a chance to try it over the weekend.
Julian: The Quan Hop = pho as Santoka = ramen analogy is spot on, even regarding the modest size of the “regular” serving. Too bad that QH doesn’t give an upsize option like Santoka does. I’ll have to reassess the fatty quality of the soup next time. I didn’t notice that, but perhaps it’s because I like my ramen broth extra porky, with a slick of fat on top. Either way, the underlying broth had plenty of beefy flavor to my taste.
Grace: The menu item number and price at dinner seems slightly different from what I had at lunch. I will have to check back on their dinner menu and see how much more they have to offer. The lunch menu, as I noted, had very slim selection.
I’m ok with a tightly focused menu, though. I’ll take laserbeam focus over a ten page menu any day!