Pho 88 Noodles and Grill

Phở 88 is AWFUL. The broth was completely watered down and had no flavor. My theory is that they took one phở pot cooked correctly and just kept adding water to it instead of making another proper broth when they ran out. As such, the broth tasted like hot water and had no phở flavors. I use to complain about how mediocre (borderline bad) DC Phở was but having experienced Phở 88 (took over for DC Phở), I’m starting to miss DC Phở. Unless you want to pay $ 12 for a small bowl of phở that taste like water, don’t come here. Guess I’ll have to trek to Adams Morgan or Columbia Heights for my phở now. Ugh.

Phở 88 is largely a smaller rebranded version of phở dc (upstairs is closed, there is no more bar area), the previous restaurant in this location, and a different chef.
How’s the phở? It’s pretty good, but the bowl are small as its the same exact bowls from Phở DC (look at their closed business page, and even the tables are the same) and there isn’t much meat or noodles. Compare for instance my picture with the following
So, small bowl (I’d guess about 30% smaller), less ingredients, and then there’s the price. At Phở DC (and Phở 88), it’s not only $ 13 ($ 17 with taxes and tip) but then there’s less of it. The price portion makes sense, after all it’s way more expensive to have a shop in Chinatown than in VA. But then I left hungry, which had never happened to me having phở, and for $ 17, that’s frustrating. Next time, I’ll use the extra $ 10 and take an über to another phở place.

It’s actually higher than 3 but I’m reluctant to give it a full four.
I had been looking forward to phở for over a week, the giant snowfall of 2016 in the DMV area had me shivering in my bones, and I knew nothing but a good bowl of phở was going to warm me all the way inside.
Upon arriving at phở 88, I was surprised to see it sleeker and cleaner and prettier than most phở places. For those of you not so experienced with phở-​ing, this is not always a good thing. Phở is one of those foods you want to eat at an old establishment with plastic tables with people speaking a language you don’t understand in the background.
Still, I pushed my prejudice aside and snagged a seat and perused a menu, despite already knowing exactly what I was going to get: a phở #1, the typical «every kind of meat you have» phở that I always get, and an order of spring rolls, just to see their caliber.
Nothing on their menu was excessively surprising. One thing that did surprise me though, the prices. Phở is not something I’m extremely used to paying over like 10 dollars for, at most 12, tax and all.
The spring rolls came and we’re pretty good, well wrapped and super crispy with quite a yummy filling. They were small for almost 6 bucks though.
So the phở came, and for the price, it was smaller than I expected. The amount of meat was nice, the amount of noodles less so. I also wish the meat had had a greater mix of tripe and tendon, and that the rare beef could’ve been paid on top of the bowl so it would still be at least a little pink when it arrived, but at that point Im just being picky.
I’m pretty happy about all the herbage they gave me though, but FYI if you don’t like green onions or regular onions (like my weirdo friends) they put them in automatically so make sure you ask them to leave them off or you’ll never pick them all out.
Anyways if you’re in a fix it’ll do, if not there are better phở places

I went to this restaurant with a friend. Another restaurant had a hour long wait so we decided to try this place. When we walked in the manager greeted us quickly and let us know they were extremely busy but we came in at a perfect time. They seated us right away and the waitress arrived pretty quickly. Though the waitress did not come back to check up on us often (due to how busy it was) the food was great! My friend ordered a Vermicelli dish. It was a hefty size and presented beautifully. I had chicken and rice and was very pleased. This is a nice place for a date because you are sitting quite close to each other and intimate setting.

Stopped pass here for lunch for a warm up after Daikaya Ramen Shop quoted almost a 2hr wait.
The environment is small but has simple, modern-​rustic décor. We were immediately seated (under a vent thank goodness) as we walked in and service came right away.
As usual, we ordered a kettle of tea with Jacket Shrimp (Black tiger shrimp wrapped with marinated ground chicken, and white pepper in thin crispy rice paper) and Spring Rolls as appetizers — both were delicious as expected.
Now for the tricky part — there was a lot of beef and pork dishes — neither I’m a fan of nor eat. So, I settled for the Grilled Chicken on Vermicelli (Bun Ga Nuong). When it came out, I was a bit shocked it wasn’t a big ol’ bowl of ramen like everyone else, but my boyfriend knew when he ordered b/​c he googled it –_​–
Not complaining, I dug right in. The vermicelli noodles are thin noodles, that I topped off with several containers of Phở 88’s «special sauce» (not sure what it was, but it was light and sweet). The chicken that came with the dish, was perfectly grilled and had that charred, smoky taste. I could’ve ate the chicken by itself, but it was even better with the noodles and special sauce.
Even while I was expecting a bowl of swimming noodles, the Vermicelli was just as satisfying and I found myself face down in the bowl until it was deemed necessary to come up for air.
If you’re looking for a place to warm up on a cold day, try Phở 88.

I will say this, the phở here is okay and I think it’s a little pricey. They’re trying to make phở a ‘classy’ thing by prettying up the ambiance. When I visited they were out of bean sprouts. I was pretty dead set on rating the place pretty low, I feel like you can’t have a complete phở experience without it, and it is true to a certain extent. They also provide the sriracha and hoisin in this dainty little dishes, but they’ll certainly give you more if you ask, just another attempt at ‘classing’ up phở.
The service here is definitely needed a little tweaking but they were definitely friendly and willing to go the extra mile. While they don’t have any alcoholic beverages they let my friend go down the street to pick up a bottle and gave us some cups to drink from it as well. I find it hard to rate a place that helps me booze up so it’s getting a 3.

I was hopeful by the 4 stars but left disappointed. I thought the pieces were high for Phở. The atmosphere in the front is a lot nicer than the back. The staff seemed a bit scattered brain on the Saturday night we were visiting. And the bathrooms need some sprucing up. All of this could have been over come by mind blowing good.
We shared the pork and shrimp rolls for an app and the pork was dry. Thumbs up for the peanut sauce. BF had Phở#1 which he enjoyed. The noodles were excessively thick and unlike anything I’ve seen at other Phở houses. I had a vermicelli bowl that was good. The jasmine tea pot was served with one tea bag but really needed 2.
The place has potential and I hope they get it together.

I ordered the pork over vermicelli and beef vermicelli. I asked for peanut sauce on the side. Not only was there such small portions (when compare with DC Phở, which seems to have shut down), the vermicelli seemed to have congealed. There was also no peanut sauce provided. Simply put, the restaurant costs more than DC Phở and isn’t as tasty as DC Phở’s offerings, nor is the portion size equivalent to the other restaurant. I will not be back. I sadly return to my hunt for a DC Phở.

Phở 88 made several critical errors, one of which I consider fatal. First, every Vietnamese restaurant should be able to produce excellent fresh spring rolls. Phở 88 really missed the mark, as their version was totally bland, and wrapped up in really thick, gummy rice paper. The rest of my lunch was similarly mediocre at best.
The fatal error was with the service. The dining room only had two wait-​staff, who ran around like headless chickens. Worse, they were also responsible for bussing and cleaning their own tables. So they handled dirty dishes, then a cleaning rag that presumably had cleaning chemicals on it, and then they turned around and served food. No time for washing hands. Someone call the health inspector. Yikes.
The host strutted around like a peacock and did nothing to assist the two hapless wait staff. The waiter was very friendly, this problem is not his fault, it is squarely management’s fault.

Very good and service was fast and good. It was just what I needed on this cold day. The phở itself as delicious. I got the Phở chin order which is sliced beef (not rare) with rice noodles. Will definitely come again.

If this seems like a mirror of my Phở DC review (which has since been replaced by Phở 88), it is.
I thought I’d give this place another chance. I mean hey, new name, maybe new owner and staff. Oh boy was I wrong. Lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it any less than a pig folks.
Below was my review for Phở DC. The same issues still apply, minus the customer service; that is now, marginally better.
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If you want watered down broth, you’ve come to the right place. With phở in your store name, you would think that your specially is phở. Boy was I wrong. It seems like they made one big pot for the day but ran out half way through the lunch service. Instead of stopping to sell to your customers, let’s just add water to the pot and hope they don’t notice.
The customer service was lackluster at best. They took 20 minutes to sit one person yet there were plenty of chairs at the bar and in the back. After they took my order, no one came by to check us on me or refill my drink.
I’m scared to try their non-​noodle dishes for fear of the same level of quality (or lack thereof).

Horrible service. Unprofessional «server assitants». Shouting thru the dining room for last call while the occupancy was practically full.
We were halfway thru our mediocre meal by the time the server brought our bubble teas which we prdered at the beginning before we even ordered our entrees.
The beef skewers were like jerky, very tough and salty. The soup bowl was like they just put everything in a bowl of water.
We found out towards the end of the meal that they are under new management. Poor change.

Came on a whim before a CAPS game. The service was great. The food, where to start, DELICIOUS! The spring and garden rolls were so good and fresh. Hubby had the chicken with rice vermicelli and cleaned his bowl. My phở tai was so flavorful there was nothing left. Will definitely be back. Wish there was one closer to home.

Although the food is good… We waited 1 hour for our food and ½ hour for our drinks. We never got our appetizers and the waiter waited 20 minutes to ask me if I wanted a cold or hot coffee. Absolutely horrible.
We asked the waiter for an extra bowl and it never came. Other tables waited just the same for their food. I mean it’s PHO, how long does it take to make?
It’s only been open for a few weeks and they def need another system to get more organized.

Okay!
Noodles: 2 ½ stars.
The noodles themselves were over cooked.
The soup just tasted ok or eh.
Now the soup did come out literally two seconds after I ordered it. Downfall that means it was sitting in a pot and not cooked to order. Which may account for the over cooked noodle taste.
Now the stars are for the service. Waiter was quick and clean even with the lunch crowd coming in. The area is prone to tourist so you gotta be grounded to deal with so many different kinds of people.

I’m only giving two stars because they were really nice to accommodate my substitution requests and, even though they messed that up, they quickly attempted to fix the situation.
I ordered take out phở. I got to try both the spicy and regular broth. They were both only okay. A little on the sweet side for some reason. No cilantro at all. The bag of beansprouts they gave me had about 12 sprouts, 1 slice of jalapeño, and a decent lime wedge. When I picked it up, the manager informed me that they put my tendon in the box with the noodles and the raw beef in the hot soup. Not sure why because obviously, this is going to cook the beef more than desired by the time you get it home. That’s kind of the point of the raw beef; to throw it into the hot broth last. But whatever.
They gave me the thick round noodles instead of the regular phở noodles that I had requested. So they quickly tried to make up for that by giving me regular phở noodles, except they WAY over cooked them and then gave them to me in a container of regular broth which continued to cook them. By the time I got them home, I couldn’t even pick them up with chopsticks. Phở mush. So I tried the other noodles they had given me. I’ve had these noodles before at another restaurant. I like them, they’re just difficult to eat. Especially when they’re undercooked and stiff.
I don’t know about the other reviewers. Maybe you get more meat when you dine in. I had 7 pieces of the thin raw beef and 4 pieces of tendon. For $ 15 for a bowl of soup, I expected a lot more than that.
All-​in-​all, I learned my lesson. I’ll stick with what has proven time and time again to be the best phở places in DC and just go to Phở 14 (if I’m craving good broth) or Viet Phở for the meats.

I visit this nice restaurant on a Cold Friday evening for some soup and spring rolls. I was not disappointed, the manager was really nice with helping us with the menu and even gave us free rolls.
The location is in the heart of China Town, and the inside has a romantic atmosphere. I chose the Spicy Noodle Soup, and I added chicken with the beef and pork. I would highly recommend this if you are into spicy food, the soup also comes with jalapeño peppers and a spicy sauce that you can add if you like.
It’s been a while since I used chop sticks so that was a major struggle, lol.
Again, I would highly recommend this restaurant if you are in the China Town neighborhood!

Never had phở before and what a great place to try it for the first time! But because of that I also have nothing to compare it to. Went in on a Friday afternoon and it was pretty empty. The place looks really nice inside and the ambience was pretty chill. The music was kickin, I almost wished it was a lounge! Lol. There was a very friendly guy working that I assumed was the manager. He took time to explain the different dishes after asking what I had in mind.
I got the first spicy dish listed and it was very flavorful. There’s already one of those larger spoons and a pair of chopsticks at your seat. I must have like two left thumbs because I could not get the hang of the sticks and hung my head in shame and got a fork lol. Well I could really dig in after that!
Before our dishes we tried the spring rolls, as suggested, which were absolutely DELISH! Fresh and hot and that dipping sauce?! Oh don’t get me started! 4 rolls went way too fast between two people. The owner guy offered to pay for them beforehand if we didn’t like them. I would have loved to not like them, but they were good! He ended up paying for them anyways!
My first phở experience was great. I wouldn’t mind coming back and it was the perfect meal on the first cold day we’ve had in DC lol.

This place’s the bomb. I expected this place to be an asian fusion kind of restaurant where they skimp out on food quality, quantity, and authenticity because … well it’s in the middle of «Chinatown» where Asian people make up less than 1% of the total population.
But much to my surprise, this is probably THE MOST AUTHENTIC phở restaurant in the whole DMV area (that’s right Eden center and Phở Sate, you’re going to have to take a back seat to Phở 88). The broth was super flavorful and we were surprised to learn they don’t use MSG! Which shocked me because I’ve only seen msg-​filled phở soup tasting this good. The bowl is also super deep so you get tons of noodles and tons of meat. They also don’t skimp you on the meat, they load it up with delightful tendon, brisket, meatballs… drooool.
Even their appetizers were top notch. I had some crispy spring rolls and it’s the best THING ever.
I’d get Phở #1, the crispy spring rolls, and the asian calamari (it’ll make you wonder whether this delicious food was really invented by asian people.
The service was also impeccable. We went during a not so busy time and we had literally 3 different people servicing us throughout our meal.
All in all, great place for Phở in downtown DC. If you get the post bar munchies, this is a great place to make your body hate you even more when you wake up the next morning.

Wow! I am a DC native and decent tasting Viet food IN DC is a rarity. What a gem that i stumbled upon Phở 88. Nestled within a townhouse on a level above the street is one long passage of clean and basic dining. You will find minimal décor but food that is bursting with flavor and color. My egg rolls were crispy and unlike most places were not skimpy in filling. The bun bo hue although lacking in pig feet/​knuckle had the characteristic broth and complexity i craved. And the combination rice had mastered the separate elements that went into the dish. Although i did not try the phở i will be back for more! I was told the Vietnamese lady in the kitchen uses her very own secret phở base.
And upon leaving if you want to indulge in more Asian goodness, their deli below serves baked items from The Bread Corner, Bubble Tea with perfect tapioca balls, and banh mi!
Also, this place is Chinese/​Viet owned and I spoke to both owners who individually were very nice.