Que Huong Pho Restaurant

This photo of Que Huong is courtesy of their web site 

Nothing says winter like a steamy bowl of Pho.  And tonight we experienced it for the first time in quite awhile at Que Huong in Madison Heights.  The only other Pho place we've been to in Metro Detroit is Đà Nẵng Restaurant in Clawson; however, I first discovered the Vietnamese version of beef soup in Herndon, VA when I was commuting regularly out there back in 2008.  A co-worker of mine at the time brought me to Pho 99, and I was astonished at how flavorful this dish is.  Pho is essentially a noodle soup with beef (or sometimes seafood) garnished with bean sprouts, basil, jalapeno's, cilantro, and lime.  Plus it doesn't hurt to add a little dash or more of the chili sauce just to steam it up a few more notches!  The broth though is what makes this meal delicious, and I'm sure it's loaded with salt because you simply have to drain the bowl dry!

As we drove out to Que Huong, we missed the turn and found ourselves passing another Vietnamese restaurant, so we must have been in the right neighborhood.  Of course, when we arrived, it was your standard small shop restaurant.  Simple fare, horrible service, but excellent food.  This was par for the course at strip mall Asian restaurants, but how could we complain.  What was even more amusing to us and our friends was the typos in the menu including one that stated the dish included "crap" meat instead of "crab".  Good stuff.

While in Herndon, I always ordered the vegetarian option with tofu, tonight, I didn't see that on the menu so I opted for the Phở tái, which was your most basic rice noodle with sliced beef rare.  Scottie upped it a notch with Phở đặc biệt, which was similar but included flank, tendon, tripe and beef meatballs.  Upon arrival of our food, I think there was a good 15 minutes of slurping, but everyone seemed to be all smiles.  And while the amount of protein served in these dishes was lacking, they made up for it with the broth and garnishes!  I would say this was comparable to my days at Pho 99.  It was not necessarily better or worse than Đà Nẵng, it was certainly more traditional.