PHO ONE-O

Today I visited PHO ONE-O in Hanover, Md close to Ft. Meade, Route 32 and BW Parkway (295) as shown here on this map and with photos of the front of the restaurant.  The unique thing about this place is it is in a shopping center with another restaurant, which has PHO available.  I will review that place in an upcoming post.  I think it is a cute play on words to have the (410) area code sort of like the name.

This place has been open for a few months and I did go in then when it first opened to check it out, however it was brand new and not too bad from what I can remember.  I wanted to re-visit now and experience it with my new found love of blogging about PHO.

The parking lot is not too large and always pretty busy due to the restaurants, the gym, the grocery store and other businesses there and the parking lot has a lot of pot holes.  I had to park a good 8 spots away and it was cold.  

Upon entering there is a very large area for seating with booths on one side, many tables in the middle and a large bar on the right, with seating up front if you are waiting for take-out.  The bathroom is in the back next to the take-out counter and when I was there this evening, there was DJ equipment set up in the back as well. Here are some photos of the inside.  One thing that was annoying was that the music they had playing was rather loud and maybe it was top 40 or so not too sure as I had to put my headphones in to allow me to take in the food and not be distracted by the loud music.

Take-out area view from my booth seat!

View of whole restaurant and bar straight ahead

Entrance on the right along with view of waiting area to the right

When I arrived, I was seated immediately because I was the only one there.  It was in-between busy meal hours so I will say that was why.  After an hour of eating, there were probably 10 people in there.  The young man provided me with a menu, water and my chopsticks/soup spoon.

As you can see, the chopsticks are just plain black and nothing special, however better than those which are stuck together and can have splinters.  My soup spoon was pretty and matched the decor, however it was plastic, cheaply made and it had a piece chipped off.  The one thing I found extremely weird was that the spoon and chopsticks came in a white envelope seen underneath it in the photo.  I'm not sure if people throw then away afterwards or if this is just an easier way to serve them, but I did not care for it.

As far as the menu, things are relatively the same as most PHO places, however there was no Seafood Pho and this made for a total of 16 PHO dishes provided.

I order the P16 Chicken Pho as before and an order of summer rolls.  They came out rather quickly, almost so fast I was not even done taking my notes.  Both the PHO and Summer Rolls came out at the same time, I find this annoying because one is an appetizer and the other my meal and there should be some time in-between the two.

Dry meat and crunchy wrapper shown here

First, I will talk about the summer rolls....  As you can see they rice-paper wrapper is very opaque and although not much different from the others I have to say that this wrapper was actually crunchy in spots like it was old and dried out.  As for the inside of the roll, the usual shrimp, lettuce, noodles and meat were inside, however the meat tasted extremely dry.  The peanut sauce, which I love, was a little watery and not enough peanuts sprinkled on the top for my liking.  Since they came out the same time as my PHO I could only eat one, before my PHO and then one afterwards, so the PHO would not get cold.

Close up of spotted basil

Next, here you can see the toppings which were given to me.  Not a really appetizing plate if you ask me, there were only 3 small jalapeño pieces, the basil was wilted and had black spots and the bean sprouts were limp.  Such a disappointment.

Finally, I was able to get to my PHO.  Upon first glance there seemed to be a lot of onions and the broth looked extremely light.  Also, I ordered a large bowl, this bowl was much smaller than the bowl from PHO KEVIN and the cost for this was higher.  I began by picking up my soup spoon and tasted the broth.  It was bland, like so bland I thought it tasted just like a regular chicken broth.  I took a few tastes to see if it became more flavorful, however it did not.  I went and placed the toppings in.

                   PHO GA 

I used the hoisin, the siracha added the jalapeños, the basil that was not black, the lime and the bean sprouts.  The above photos show once I placed the toppings and then after I mixed up the noodles and the meat.  I was disappointed in that there were maybe 5 pieces of chicken and a small amount of noodles.  I ate the whole bowl easily and as stated before ate the other summer roll and did not drink the broth at the end because I just was not impressed with it.

I finished, the waiter took my plates and never re-filled my water and I had drank all of it.  He did come by about 6 times to ask if I was ok, since I was one of the only people in there he must of been bored.  It was nice that they provided a 10% military/govt. discount, however most all places around there do that since they are so close to Ft. Meade.  I actually forgot to ask for mine so I paid full-price.

In the end, I liked the decor of the place, the music was a bit much, the PHO and Summer Rolls were mediocre at best and along with the size of my bowl and the cost I find that they need to work on the "delicious" part of their philosophy which per the website is:

"To not become just another PHO restaurant with a catchy name... but to become the most delicious and the most frequently visited PHO restaurant in the area" 

All in all I would NOT recommend this PHO place in Hanover and give it 1 basil leaf bunch out of 5.