Now I’ve had my fair share of pho in the past – there are tons of pho places back at SoCal. Sadly, there hasn’t been too many stand-out pho restaurants around the Berkeley area.
Fortunately, I had the chance to switch things up by eating at Turtle Tower in San Francisco. The restaurant is ranked in 7X7’s The Big Eat SF: 100 Things to Try Before You Die, and offers northern-style pho, which is pretty unique.
The restaurant itself was located in Little Saigon, and to get there, you have to traverse the infamous Tenderloin neighborhood, one of the sketchier places in the city. Turtle Tower was a pretty standard authentic Vietnamese restaurant, nothing fancy.
I ordered their pho ga, which is northern-style chicken pho. There were several key differences that I noticed off the bat – the noodles were the flat kind, the broth was a lot lighter, and of course the meat was chicken instead of beef.
Overall, the pho ga was delicious, and even though the broth was probably just as salty as regular pho’s, the dinner felt more on the light and healthy side. Reminded me a bit of an Asian-style chicken noodle soup.
Hope to go back some time in the near future.
Survive the Tenderloin at www.thefoodspotlight.com.