Come taste a savory meal at Pho Dau Bo. Discover a menu featuring soup, priced at 11$ to 25$ and experience their casual atmosphere. They are open at night from Monday to Friday. You can pay by MasterCard and Visa.
This might be my favorite restaurant. I have been coming to this location for about 5 years and it is very consistent. The food is incredibly good, there are other restaurants that serve better quality thai dishes in the K-W area, but for this price this is the best deal. The most ‘bang for your buck’ so to speak. The portions are very generous; I am about 6’1 230 lbs and I can eat, typically I struggle to finish a meal consisting of an appetizer and main course. I always leave full, satisfied, and without breaking the bank.
I absolutely recommend visiting and will personally continue to so in the future. The only criticism I can offer specific to this location is the quality of atmosphere. It’s in a bad area of town being downtown Kitchener. The restaurant itself is located in a dive/basement like part of the building. The building it is in looks aged, poorly maintained, and contains several other questionable businesses. The parking lot isn’t paved or well lit, and feels like you might get mugged leaving or traveling to your car. The inside the restaurant is kind of gloomy and all of the furniture, utensils, and equipment appear to be weathered. There is also this annoying bell or charm the goes off every time someone enters or leaves the restaurant making it feel like a convenience store or a queue to get on the subway.
The service, like the food is also very good. The restaurant is never over packed. I have never had to wait for a table. As soon as I walk through the door a server is grabbing the appropriate amount of menus and walking me to the table. I literally do not stop walking from when I leave the car to when I get to my table because the staff is so on top of it when guests arrive. Although the service to very good, it’s not too good, and that’s good. I personally do not like being bugged and having my conversation interrupted every 5 minutes by some desperate for tips student. They sit you down, bring your drinks and meal very quickly, and leave you alone. One final thing I will mention is regarding the pho (soup) portion sizes. Whatever your non-thai soup portion experience is leave it at the door, the portions are extremely large, a small or medium will feed one person and a large will probably feed two.
I ordered the Pho with beef slices and beef balls. I received my meal within 5 minutes. Very quick service!
The noodles in my bowl were all broken and cut up into pieces like macaroni elbow noodles. I'm pretty sure they shouldn't be like that since I've been here a few times already. I spoke to the waitress and they told me it shouldn't be like so she took the soup away and she'll let the owner know owner know about the situation. The owner confronted us and refused to exchange the soup because "there's nothing wrong with it", which the waitress and I thought otherwise. He also demanded that we pay for the soup that they took back and then proceeded to raise his voice and start yelling at us for refusing to accept our order. I didn't know what to do at this point so I calmly asked him to go back and bring out our soup. Once he was at the back. My wife and I left the restaurant.
Nevar again am I coming back there. I've never met such rude restaurant operators before.
Maybe our take-out experience would have been better if this place put a menu online. I don't know how a take out restaurant survives in 2011 without any web presence. Anyways...
We ordered 2 vegetarian pad thais, and vegetarian spring rolls. I asked the girl on the phone if they made green curry, she said no, but they could do yellow curry with tofu on rice. Sounded good to me.
It wasn't. It was chinese fried vegetable rice (the veggies consisting of Green Giant cubed carrot and pea mix) with some fried tofu. My wife called to complain of this, and we were first told that the restaurant doesn't sell curry (??) then the curry in the dish I received was "fried into it" - The cost for my "rice creation" was $9. The restaurant offered no future discount or credit, and did not apologize.
As for the Pad Thai: not bad, but not the best we've had in the area, especially at the $9.50 price.
Live and learn... Next time we want beef tripe soup (never), maybe we'll give Pho Dau Bo another shot. Until then, there are better Viet & Thai restaurants in the area that actually know what a thai curry is.
Ordered a pho and cold bubble tea with "less ice". Instead of a full cup, I was given half a cup of bubble tea (warm). I've ordered bubble tea with "less ice" at many other establishments with no issues. When I complained, I was told to get out. When I asked the man's name, he refused to tell me. Needless to say, if you want good service, STAY AWAY!!! Food was OK but there are definitely better pho places in town.
Food come very quick which I like. Don't expect too much service, they;re more of a fast food type restaurant and get straight to the point. However a little unorganized but still very yummy when you want a big bowl of hot soup! Food comes out as soon as it is made, which I know some people hate but other restaurants just leave in it the back anyways. Sometimes other places will warm it up again if it takes too long. so Really as least you know that they just made it fresh.
