what happened to this place? it used to be good!. went to the new pho bo ga la at 761 somerset looking for some of what vietnamese cuisine is famous for: fresh, delicious comfort food like pho that warms your soul and nourishes your body.
to say the food was disappointing would be an understatement. the first clue of the shoddy meal that was to follow was the tea. instead offreshbrewed, sweet smelling tea to prepare our palettes we were served lukewarm tea that had been stepped about 6 hours too long. it was practically black and i felt nauseated minutes after having a few sips.
this was followed by disappointing, yet again, pork salad rolls. the shredded pork was dry and didn't taste fresh, there were no greens in the salad roll, nofreshbasil nofreshmint nothing. the two tiny salad rolls were served on a plate with no delicious peanut satay sauce for dipping. when we inquired about the missing sauce, the waiter told us that salad rolls are dipped in fish sauce not peanut sauce. i don't know about any of you out there, but i have never seen that before! the fish sauce that was given to me, i had assumed, was for my barbeque pork bun which was to follow. however, no additional fish sauce came to accompany my bun. it seems to me like a really pathetic way to cut costs and screw the customer.
as mentioned, i ordered the bbq pork bun and my boyfriend ordered rare beef pho with beef balls.
like the spring rolls, the meat in both the pork bun and the pho did not tastefreshand neither of us finished the meat on our plates. in fact i stopped eating the barbecued pork after the first bite. also like the spring rolls, vegetables and greens were virtually absent. the usual beautiful display of shredded carrots and cucumber and basil or mint that adorns a bowl of bun was replaced by roughly chopped carrots and cucumbers and some green onion cut in rounds - the presentation was pathetic. the noodles themselves in the bun looked as though they had been sitting in the bowl all day and were someone's leftovers.!
i ate a few noodles and gave up. it was inedible. i would like to tell you that the waiter offered to take this off the bill, but he said it was "in the system". funny, the "system" is a hand written bill!
my boyfriend ate about 1/3 of his pho and he had had enough. when i went up to pay the bill all they cared about was to say how sorry they were that they couldn't take it off the bill.
i am insulted that anyone would serve this garbage to another person, free or otherwise. absolutely disgusting. shame on you new pho bo ga la. i expect this restaurant to close its doors or reinvent itself soon. i'll certainly be spreading the word to people i like to not go to this restaurant...and even people i don't.
please excuse typos, i did this on my smartphone.