Pholicious

LOVE THIS LITTLE STAND! This Pho stand is in the Southpoint Mall food court. They have delicious traditional style pho. Their pho in my opinion is better than some of the Pho restaurants I have been to. Ranging from beef to seafood. They also have little sides such as seaweed salad, dumplings, etc. they also offer various flavors of boba. The prices are decent for the amount.

Every time we're in the mall, this place is closed, so when I found the booth open today while picking up lunch at their sister restaurant, Ichiban, I decided to give it a try since we love pho. Unfortunately, it was a big letdown. I ordered the chicken pho. For starters, the broth is EXTREMELY salty. I am born and bred in NC and you know we love our salt in the south. But even I had a hard time stomaching the broth. The chicken was decent. It wasn't as bad as some reviews make it out to be. In fact, it seemed pretty fresh since some pieces weren't sliced all the way through yet and you could tell it was a larger piece from a chicken breast. The other big problem were the veggies. Now most pho places give you the bean sprouts, jalapeños, lime and cilantro. And the pho is topped with green onions. Well this had all that, but then they also have another side of veggies that's mostly cabbage, some carrots, raw yellow onion and broccoli. I saw the lady remove it frozen or at least chilled from a container and put it in hot water for about 20-30 seconds. I guess that was supposed to cook them quickly. But it doesn't and you end up getting mostly raw veggies instead. I made the mistake of accidentally biting into a raw onion and it was pretty nasty (I hate raw onions unless they're green onions). I was hoping that by adding these to my broth it would soften them some and add some unique flavor to the dish, but I just regretted it afterwards. The noddles were a bit weird and didn't taste like the usual rice noodles. They weren't as tender and didn't taste fresh, but more like frozen noodles that were heated up a bit. With all that said, I don't recommend this pho since there are better places locally, although I've yet to find a really good authentic pho restaurant that matches our favorite from Philly (iPHO if you're ever there). Locally, Thai China Buffet has the best in Durham so far, but we're still on the search for the best pho in the Triangle. My husband and I both agree that this was a one and done for Pholicious. The owner of Ichiban is very nice and we've loved his food over the last 8 years in the mall, so I hate to write a bad review about his other restaurant. I'd encourage you to get the black pepper chicken at Ichiban instead since it's awesome if fresh - it was very tasty for lunch today.

The coffee tastes like instant coffee. They walk over to another restaurant to get the egg rolls, and they are not good. The chicken pho is filled with cabbage, broccoli, and carrots. Sooo much cabbage! The chicken is not cooked how you'd hope for chicken pho. The broth was okay, but overall would not recommend.

The store is inside Southpoint mall, an Asian woman in her 40’s served us. She was very friendly, and her Pho was amazing. Her honey dew bubble tea was a lot better than the ones from Kung-Fu tea (Kung fu tea’s bubble tea were bitter, they obviously over brew their tea and claim to be correct). I recommend the food and drinks here more than anywhere in NC. However, I wouldn’t know if anyone else is behind their counter.

Seems like they don’t care much here - ordered a bubble tea, asked if it could be made less sweet and was told “yes”, but clearly no modifications were made. Employee was eating with her fingers when I approached and didn’t sanitize her hands before making my drink, seemed reluctant to wear a mask. Seemed irritated that I was there and didn’t say thank you even though I told her thank you after receiving my drink. Boba milk tea was way too sweet and I felt unsafe because of her touching with unsanitized hands. Threw away my $6+ drink after a few sips.