Pho WITHOUT the fanfare

I’m going to let you in on a secret. Here’s the place to go for a no-frills homecooked Vietnamese meal, if you happen to find yourself in Los Baños, Laguna.

Always on the lookout for a good place to eat, we stumbled upon this hole-in-the wall restaurant, barely missing the obscure handpainted sign among some trees. Although we were about to have lunch at my parents’ home, we couldn’t resist eating something. Being a pho aficionado, pho it was! Phuong’s pho is the real deal. It’s served steaming hot, loaded with basil and rauram coriander, and the shrimp sweetly tender. The soup is sweet and satisfying, with the subtle taste of onion.

Later visits led us to sample her menu. There isn’t anything that we haven’t tried that we don’t like. Another favorite is the chicken curry noodles – rice noodles in a beautiful medley of sweet, sour and spicy chicken slivers, with ground peanuts, always generously served with basil. A fast favorite with Dui (ok, and me too) is the fried spring rolls – more veggies and noodles inside a crisp shell. There is a noodle variation of this – so you get the yummy noodles along with your spring rolls. Not into fried, try the fresh vegetable spring rolls – fresh veggies and noodles rolled in rice paper. By our experience, any pho or noodle dish is good!

By LB standards, it’s a little pricey yet people still come! But by Manila standards, I think it’s a steal. The shrimp pho is 150 pesos, an order of four spring rolls is 80 pesos, the various noodles range from 75 to 100 pesos.

Just a caveat: don’t come here if you are in a rush. While you get a real homecooked meal, you’ll probably have to wait at least 30 minutes for it. Phuong is the one who does the cooking, and she’ll come out and chitchat with you a bit too. Remember too that LB is a small town. So sit yourself down and enjoy the relaxed ambiance and the small town friendliness.

Oh, and don’t expect any fancy décor! It’s a bare bones affair, functional and clean. In fact you feel like you are entering someone’s home! But I’m not complaining because when I’ve eaten a meal prepared by Phuong, I usually walk out with a silly self-satisfied smile and a gratified belly.

When Yeng disappears when we're in LB, Phuong's resto would be the first place to look.

Trivia we picked up from Phuong and her Filipino husband: The delicious Vietnamese puto you buy at Pho Hoa – sticky rice colored green because of pandan, with mungbean – is made here. Phuong’s husband also supplies Pho Hoa their basil. Our stash of Vietnamese tea – tra – comes from here.

On the stars: the food is a four, the overall dining experience is a three

Phuong Vietnamese Restaurant, Near Agrix. Coming from Crossing, you’ll see it as the store behind the pizza joint that is right on Lopez Avenue, Los Banos, Laguna