Flushing Pho

I find it amusing that my Bright Eyes entry comes up if you search for "azulet" in Google Blog Search. You can always use the upper left corner search box to search within this blog as well.

Anyhow, about the Phở place across the street from the Flushing Library. What is phở?

阿宏 (Hoàng)
Everbest Restaurant
Vietnamese Cuisine & BBQ
41-01 Kissena Blvd.
Flushing, NY 11355
(718) 762-6151

I've include all the names of the restaurant on the takeout menu I've collected. Of course, the big sign is actually 越南牛肉河粉 in red letters. You can't miss it if you are standing at the doors to the Flushing library.

Apparently the place offers authentic Vietnamese cuisine and Cantonese style BBQ. All the items have Chinese, Vietnamese, and English descriptions. Some photos of the dishes are also on the menu, in case if you're not sure what you're ordering.

I ordered #7 on the Phở list: 生牛腩筋百叶河粉. The English description is as follows:
Combination Rice Noodles Beef Soup with Fresh Eye of Round Navel and Omosa.
I have no idea what any of the English means. But let me translate the Chinese bit.
生-raw, rare, fresh. I think in this case it meant I was getting rare (med. rare) instead of well done beef.
牛腩-fatty belly beef
筋-beef tendon
百叶-beef tripe
The bowl of boiling soup will heat the seemingly rare beef. At first I was shocked by the red meat that came with my noodle soup but after a min. they all cooked quickly and are amazingly tender. Thin slices of belly beef cooked quickly anyway. The tripe was a bit tough which saddened me to no end. The tendon was nice.

I was a bit disappointed with the fresh veggies that accompanied the order. Only green bean sprouts, some basil leaves, and a lemon wedge. The soup already has scallion and cilantro (no leaves, only stalks). The fresh veggies add nice texture to the noodle soup experience. Gotta love basil too.

Clearly, I forgot to order the spicy one. Luckily, there were two bottles of different hot sauce on the table so I helped myself to them. Much better. One apparently was Sriracha (rooster brand) while the other one seemed to be generic red chili pepper sauce with seeds included. I liked both.

I wonder whether there's an extra-large option for the noodles. Most of them are listed in two sizes, small ($4.50) and large ($5.50). The #1 on the menu is only in extra large ($5.50) and it features even more beef parts. Maybe I'll try it next time. I also demand more beef.

Unless you can't eat noodles, get the large. Don't let the waitress embarrass you out of it. She was skeptical when I wanted a large but clearly I finished all of it.

The other menu items looked tasty, too. Maybe I'll try it with a group for lunch/dinner someday.