Kim Phung

There I was.  All alone. With no one to eat with.  The horror, the horror...  No, my name is not Kurtz nor do I weigh 400lbs (well, not yet at least...).  Rather, I really had no one to eat with.  Never fear when Whipping Girl is near.  She wasn't really near, yet she did have a nasty flu which according to her, needed some Pho therapy.  Excellent. Better yet, she was hungry.  Hungry enough to "pull a Mijune" in her words.  Music to my ears.  So I picked her up and headed over to Kim Phung on Victoria.  After some fancy Vietnamese joints such as Broken Rice and Chopsticks on Pho, it was nice to visit a lil' dive where the prices did not elicit any sticker shock.

When Whipping Girl indicated she'd pull a Mijune, she wasn't kidding.  We ended up with 5 items starting with the Salad Rolls.  These were modest in size, especially for the price.  However, they were constructed tightly with crisp, fresh ingredients.  I liked how they didn't overload on the bean sprouts.  As a result there was a balance of ingredients consisting of shrimp, pork, vermicelli, sprouts, lettuce and basil within a nicely textured rice wrapper.  One thing that could've been better was the dip since it was predominantly hoisin.  Next up was the Grilled Chicken Banh Mi arriving hot and crunchy.  The bread was slightly on the denser side while retained a crunch due to the fact it was toasted.  The chicken was really good being tender, juicy and flavourful.  The pickled daikon and carrots did not have much impact since there was a lack of acidity.

Onto our 3 mains, we had the Pho Bo Vien (or pho with meatballs).  The broth was clean and on the lighter side with a noticeable meatiness.  It was not as sweet as some of the other broths I've had recently, but then again, I'm not a huge fan of sweet broths anyways  For a large, there could've been more rice noodles (although they were al dente and not clumpy). We also had the Bun Bo Hue which contained the prized pork knuckle in addition to the pork blood, beef and pork slices. The broth, much like the Pho, had a good amount of meat flavour.  Again, it was light and wasn't all that spicy.  There was nothing amiss with the noodles nor the meats.

Our last dish was the Vermicelli Bowl with spring rolls and grilled pork.  We were slightly disappointed at the use of wheat wrappers for the spring rolls, yet in the end, it didn't really matter.  They were crispy, light and not greasy.  The filling was not dense and had a sweet onion hit to it.  As for the meat, it was slightly dry, yet nicely caramelized and charred. All throughout our meal, the owners were very friendly and attentive.  We generally enjoyed our food, however, we did think it was on the pricier side.

The Good:
- Carefully prepared food
- Friendly owners

The Bad:
- Slightly pricey
- It's kinda divey, but then again, it's not that important