Phonatic

Today after Taiji, I went to this restaurant called, "Phonatic." I sat down to look at the menu and for some reason I couldn't find any "Pho" on the menu. And this is a place where they're supposed to serve Pho because it is "Pho" natic. Anyway, I looked at the menue again, but couldn't find anything with the words "pho" well except on the front cover. Then I remembered order a number 20 something....that's when I looked again and realized that the menu skipped 25 to 40. Wow, that's a lot of items missing. Anyway, when I saw this I thought, "hmmm, maybe they stopped serving it because someone complained about the MSG or maybe they're just out of Pho broth today." So when the waitress came to take my order I told her that I knew what I wanted but that it's not on the menu because number 25 to 40 was missing. I told her I wanted a small steak and beef ball Pho. I guess she didn't understand because she ran to get me another menu. With the menu I was able to point out that I wanted rare steak, but also with meatballs. The soup came and for some reason the bowl looked very small today, might have been because I was extremely hungry? Anyway, I also had Vietnamese ice coffee.....my hands are shaking from it still since I'm not an avid caffiene consumer. Today I tried something new that I have never done in my life while eating Pho. I ate the soup/noodles without an hot sauce or hoison sauce. That was a big step for me. I was able to appreciate the pho broth (I used to work at a Vietnamese restaurant called "Saigon City" in the Bay Area, the broth it's not easy to make). Don't worry I had my "rooster" sauce and hoison sauce on the side (I like to dip my meat). So yeah...with or without the MSG, I'd go back again because it was pretty good, it was cheap and most importantly they didn't charge me for adding the meatballs.

Here's a photo I found online (I forgot to bring my camera).