08 February 2011

phd Vietnamese Restaurant ~ Marrickville


Pho Bac Hai Duong has moved a couple of doors down Illawarra Road and shortened it's name to PHD Vietnamese Restaurant. A fine excuse to revisit an old favourite...




In early January 2011 we were almost in tears when we saw Pho Bac Hai Duong had closed down. Then we bumped into the owner on the street, he told us not to panic, he was just moving a couple of doors down for rent reasons. Woohoo!

The bad news is that the new shop is on the site of Hai Yen, another classic old school Marrickville hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese joint. Sadly Hai Yen is no more. It will be sorely missed. It was quite a surprise as we had a fantastic feed at Hai Yen just a few days earlier.

The new PHD premises are a bit flasher, they've done a nice job on the fitout but we do prefer ancient decor of the old restaurant, but that's just us. The food is still excellent, and the family in charge is still warm and friendly. It is packed on a Monday night.



Vietnamese Pancake - $11. A light, crispy pancake filled with pork, prawns, squid and bean sprouts. The turmeric infused crispy wafer was light and a little oily, but the fresh ingredients and splash of chilli sauce cut through that.



Boneless Stuffed Chicken Wings - $9 for 2. Deboned chicken wings stuffed with savoury minced chicken.



Traditional herbal duck and mushrooms with egg noodle soup - $13. This is sensational: the broth is love at first sip, rich and sweet. The duck is rich and generous in portion and falls off the bone, the mushrooms are soaked through with the broth and ooze when you bite into them. Thin wiggly egg noodles and bright greens add to the potion. Divine.



Pho - noodle soup with rare beef - $8.50. Excellent. This was a regular size portion and filled up our mate the Ginger Ninja in a flash. We spied a couple nearby struggling through a large size each and the bowl looked huge.



Traditional style pork in hotpot - $14. Another rich dish, lovely hunks of pork belly with two eggs. It is like a hot pot version of the classic 'stewed\caramelised\five spice pork and egg' dish we have found in roadside stalls in Vietnam and Thailand. If anybody knows where to find the classic version of this dish in Sydney we'd love to know, it is usually found in a bainmarie. The last place we spied it in Kings Cross has closed down. The Thai joint in the Sussex Centre Food Court also did it for a while but alas no more...

PHD is at 308 Illawarra Road, Marrickville. Ph 9559 5078. Open 7 days 10am to 10pm. See our other posts here and here.

3 comments:

  1. Wow, looks beautiful! Stuffed chicken wings are always great, and that duck noodle soup and pork belly hotpot looks delish! Not sure about the name PHD though ....

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  2. Far out that's a change from the old premises! Love the stuffed chicken wings there, we would get them every time we ate there.

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  3. Wow they moved! One of my favourite pho joints, would be a regular if I lived closer...

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Thanks for your comment joy - please keep your musings happy - if you want to complain about a restaurant please do it on a restaurant review site (or your own blog) - we're all about celebrating cultural diversity and the great eats that come along with it :-)

Our ethics: We pay for all our own meals and travel (though sometimes Mum shouts us).