Pho Report part 2: Saigon Express and Le Regal

These two Pho’ joints are less than a block apart in downtown Berkeley. On the surface they couldn’t be any more different. Le Regal is a medium scale Vietnamese restaurant with a pleasant interior, nice for a sit down meal, whereas Saigon Express is, as the name suggests, basically a fast food joint complete with a chafing dish buffet and faded illuminated photos of the food. Imagine my surprise when there pho’ had more than a few things in common.

Le Regal

The soup here, delivered by a fairly pleasant if hands off waitstaff, was perfectly decent. The broth was a little thin but not altogether unpleasant. The addition of little bits of fried garlic was welcome and It came with a huge heaping mass of the standard garnishes.

The one part of this bowl of soup that was definitely sub par was the meat. It wasn’t necessarily low quality meat it just wasn’t the right cut for pho’. It was too meaty and chewy when served partially raw.

Saigon Express

The broth here was again thin and lacking in the beefy depth I’d come to expect. The noodles where all clumped together at the bottom of the bowl. They seemed as if they’d been cooked the day before then let to sit. The meat, once again, was the main disappointment. It was the same cut as usual but it was so overdone that it had basically the same texture as the cut used by their neighbor across the street. The one pleasant surprise about this place was the addition of cilantro to the garnish plate.

A Side Note
For some reason every place I’ve been to recently has come with lemons instead of limes. Is there some shortage of limes in the bay area?