Bao Chau

Hey Everyone,

Jess and I recently went to Bao Chau Vietnamese Restaurant prior to hitting up PNE. I've been here several times in the past, prior to blogging for Domo Is Craving, so I thought it'd be a good opportunity to check this place out again and blog about it!

In my opinion prior to blogging for Domo, Bao Chau had been one of my favourite pho places and I had considered it one of the best pho that I had tried at that point. Since blogging for Domo, my new favourite pho place has become Pho 37 so I was curious to see if this place will still remain one of my favourites.


We arrive at around 3pm on a Sunday, and the place was almost fully packed, so clearly it was still a very popular restaurant. Even though the sign in the picture above stays they're a spring roll specialty house, we did not end up ordering any. I have had their spring rolls before and remember them to be very good, but pho was all we had this time.

I had the Rare Beef and Beef Balls pho as usual, in large:

I was given the option of hot or cold tea, so I picked cold tea since it was a pretty sunny day. 

Presentation wise, it may look like there isn't very much here, but when you start separating the noodles and peeling the beef slices apart, there is actually a ton of meat in this bowl! My usual practice with eating pho is to add sauces to it, but after dining at Pho 37, I've refrained from adding sauce unless the soup really needed it. I tried this straight up first to see how it tasted, and the soup was actually pretty good! I tried the noodles, but for some reason, the soup's flavour never fully integrated into the noodles, as the noodles themselves had this other flavour that I could not put my finger on. You can taste some of the soup in the noodles, but there was just this other flavour there that kept dominance over the noodles, and it was kind of throwing me off. It wasn't the best flavour in the noodles due to this, so I was a split on my opinion of this pho at that time. The beef slides were great, as they arrived partially rare, so they were very tender and had great flavour from soaking up the soup. The beef balls held in the soup's flavour as well as their own, and there was plenty of meat in this soup to eat it proportionately with the noodles. The only thing I added in the beginning was squeezing a wedge of lime into this and that was all. The pho held it's own without extra sauces which was a win in my opinion.

Jess had the Rare Beef, Well Done Flank & Beef Balls pho, in small:

She thought this was a very good pho which she enjoyed a lot!

The service was good, typical of usual pho restaurants, nothing bad and nothing note worthy.

Overall this was a good dining experience as the food was good and it was a simple casual meal. They have parking in the front with free street parking, and they have a small parking lot in the back as well, so accessibility was not an issue. The restaurant is spacious and comfortable, and I would definitely dine here again should I be in the area next time. It's nothing spectacular that I would come here just to dine here, but it is my preferred pho restaurant in this area of Vancouver.

Food:

4/5

Service:

3/5

Price:

$

Overall:

3.5/5

Thanks for reading everyone, munch on!

- Phil