I hadn't heard of Pho Viet Anh before I found it via citysearch and decided to stop there yesterday after some downtown shopping, but apparently it's a favorite for many, especially if they live around Queen Anne*. It does have a leg up on most pho joints, having nice decor and actual atmosphere, with a bit of a tiki bar vibe and some mood lighting. The menu also goes a little beyond the standard pho joint options (though not to the book-length complexity of someplace like Tamarind Tree). Though you pay a little for the luxury: the price for a bowl of pho is a few dollars up from the standard dingy joint.

Anyway, the pho itself was pretty good. The broth was tasty, though like many it had more flavor impact up front with less complexity behind it. In other words, the first taste is really good, but it gets less interesting fairly quickly. The meat was fairly standard. The noodles, as is common, were a little undercooked at first but after a few minutes of eating, perfect. No chili sauce, just sriracha and some weird kind of dry chili thing that I didn't try. So, pretty good pho, and a step above in decor in atmosphere.

*Actually, after looking more carefully at the reviews on the stranger, yelp, and especially citysearch, I'm suspicious that there's a certain amount of astroturfing going on. (hint to unscrupulous business owners: when you add fake reviews, don't make them all 5 stars and by user accounts that have never reviewed anything else).

Javier Marias - Dark Back of Time
Natsuo Kirino - Grotesque
Henning Mankell - Before the Frost
Miyuki Miyabe - Crossfire
Yiyun Li - A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
Simon Singh - The Code Book
David Weber and Steve White - In Death Ground

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I think I may be suffering pho burnout. Not in the sense that I'm tired of pho, at all, but it's becoming hard to distinguish one from another sometimes, and even harder to say anything new or original. Anyway, Saigon City is a highly recommended east side pho joint. I was there for lunch, before a meeting at Microsoft, and I actually expected to find it more packed with Microsofties and whoever during the lunch hour. I wouldn't exactly say it has ambience, but nor is it the standard dingy pho joint (and the prices are a little higher accordingly). It was a nice place to sit with my book and bowl of pho, especially while I could look around and know that pretty much everyone else there had to be back at work soon.

Anyway, they offer a good broth, with a fair amount of depth and complexity. You get the nice hint of cinnamon and star anise when they first set the bowl down, and the first taste is flavorful, with a fairly full flavor as you keep tasting it. The meat is pretty good, standard stuff, with perfectly-done noodles. They're very generous with the basil, and I was glad to see chili sauce on the table. I pretty much cleaned out my bowl.

Cilantro haters, by the way, will be glad to hear their pho seems to be cilantro-free (I haven't really been noting who does or doesn't have cilantro, but I had poor cilantro-intolerant Peter on my mind today, since he recommended Saigon City in the first place).