Pho Ha Long

For such a small place, Port Moody has an impressive diversity of eats.  These include Cake-Ya, Rehanah's Roti and Aroma.  Finally, we see the first Vietnamese joint open up in the former location of Flame Stone Grill. With little in the way of competition, it was probably an obvious addition to the culinary scene in PoMo.  Big D and I decided to check it out for lunch one day and surprisingly only ate 3 dishes (Big D can eat 3 by himself...).

As my bowl of Big D's Pho Bo Vien hit the table, we instantly knew it wasn't going to be enough food.  Predominantly comprised of broth with very little noodle and just enough meatballs, this was not really worth the money.  The broth itself was quite light with only the slightest meat flavour and a touch of sweetness.  The noodles were a bit soft while the meatballs were well Vietnamese meatballs. I ended up with the Bun Bo Hue and it was also a meager portion.  Hidden beneath the limited amount of meat was literally a handful of noodles.  Fortunately, the broth was decent though with a lemongrass hit and plenty of shrimp paste.  But again, this was a Bun Bo Hue in name only as there were many meats missing.

With sliced pieces as thin as can be, the Lemongrass Chicken was a bit strange.  As expected, the thin meat was dry and lifeless, but it had a light char though.  There was a modest amount of flavour where it was slightly sweet. The accompanying Salad Roll was a bit too simple for our tastes consisting of only iceberg lettuce and shrimp.  The Spring Roll was decent though being crispy and made with rice paper. As you can probably ascertain, our meal here was pretty average.  Sure, it's PoMo, but we felt that the value was just not there and the food wasn't good enough to make up for it.

The Good:
- Spacious
- Good for them as there is not much in the way of competition nearby

The Bad:
- Meager portions
- Average eats