FREE SODA (in a can) for the First Two Weeks of Opening (until March 28, 2012).
| Location |
| 226 3rd Street, corner of University Avenue |
| Hours |
| Mon-Sat, 10am - 10pm |
| Phone |
| (530) 753-5741 |
| Payment Method |
| Cash, Visa, Debit |
| Web site |
| Unknown |
| Price range |
| $5-8ish |
| Menus |
| Menu |
Pho King IV is the fourth addition to the Pho King chain (there's a ![[WWW]](http://wikispot.org/wiki/eggheadbeta/img/sycamore-www.png){kind=small}
Pho King 2 in Sacramento), having made its way to Davis just in time for the winter season. It's in the location where Orange Hut used to be. Come for a "Pho King" good meal. Sign in at the counter for a table; they'll seat you, take your order at the table, and deliver your food to you. Pay at the counter afterwards. Chopsticks and soup spoons are in containers at the table. There's soup (small, large, extra-large), stir-fried entrees, spring rolls, egg rolls, plenty of specialty drinks and juices, and even a kid's menu.
OPENED ON PI DAY 2012!
Comments:
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2011-10-18 12:55:18 hrmmmmh
I will take my respectable older Vietnamese friend here to sample the FUUUUH, then I will report —StevenDaubert
2011-10-26 14:57:04 I've been to Pho King 2 for Bun Bo Hue (Pig knuckle, blood cake, spicy beef soup) and it was excellent. I think Daubert and I may have the same "respectable older Vietnamese friend"....haha. My hopes are high for this restaurant. —aroach12
2011-10-26 15:25:30 I'm very excited to have pho so close to campus — very much hope that it's good! —CovertProfessor
2011-11-02 13:08:47 also awesome play on words with the name kekekekek —StevenDaubert
2011-11-03 17:37:42 As long as they have very meaty pho dishes available, I will be a huge fan. I love Pho Bac Hoa Viet very much as is. —EricWecker
2011-11-29 08:35:52 omgggg if this place is anything like pho king 2 in sac, i will eat here all the time and have no reason to go to hoa viet ever again. i concur with the comment about the excellence of pho king 2's bun bo hue. —JenniferGiang
2011-11-30 04:59:19 bbh bbh bbh bbh —Kafani
2011-12-29 21:39:42 when are you going to pho king open? —argyle
2012-02-01 12:41:36 Heard it will be mid February. They are just waiting on inspections. —LokiAbbi
2012-02-27 17:54:41 Posted the times from the window. Damn I wish this place would open soon. :O It's got two more days to open in February lol...—BmetalV
2012-03-04 17:18:24 Per Pho King 2 staff on 03/04: Davis location will open mid March. Work to meet inspection requirements just completed. Good timing now that gas prices are ridiculously high for no apparent logical reason. We can now bike to noodles and iced coffee. :) —Kiefer
2012-03-08 21:10:02 I biked past the place today and a banner was up with a grand opening date on March 14!!!
2012-03-15 12:48:00 Came here on their Grand Opening Day! Who cares if it's raining or wet? A bowl of pho will fix that up! As mentioned before, I am from San Jose, Bay Area, aka the capital of Vietnamese Pho in NorCal. Judging by the standards of Pho in Davis (not Sacramento), let's see how they measure up. Visited this place with a friend during lunchtime 11AM.
Food: B. Seriously BETTER Than Bac Hoa Viet or Sunrise by far! My friend would not stopping saying that fact outloud and it was so funny because they were overstaffed their first day (I'll get to that). I got the Pho Tai Nam Sach Large for about $6.95. There was plenty of meat in the bowl (they don't skip out on that) and the pho was fresh. My friend just told me that they probably cooked it too long so the noodles were slightly clumpy. The bowl was huge and they offer noodle soups in 3 sizes (Small, Large, XL). Not sure where the Medium went, but I ordered a Large to be safe! The prices were fair, ranging from $5.95 to ~$8. They also have other noodle soups such as Bun Bo Hue (Spicy Beef Noodles), which my friend got. She said it was decently delicious but added too much pepper. Remember you can always add more spices but never "unspice" them! Received a free can of soda, and they offer free tea and water in the beginning.
Location/Ambiance: B. Located where Orange Hut used to be, you enter and they offer Chinese take-out food! 1 entree/1 side for about $4...yes you read that CORRECTLY! Then the prices and sizes go up from there. It looked and smelled delicious. Then you walk towards the cashier and the staff greet you and seat you promptly. Inside there are red tables furnished with your utensils/napkins (chopsticks and spoons), sauces (hoisin, hot), and other spices. The place is actually quite small. Great for a party of four. There is a huge, long table in the back area for parties of 6+ as well. Overall, they made the place look tidier and cleaner. There's also a TV in the back as well.
Service: B. For the first day, my friend and I predicted that they would be overstaffed by their partners from Sac...and low behold, they had a lot of workers running around. Service here is Asian service. They ask you what you want, hand it to you, you eat, and then pay/go. I noticed some servers were occasionally asking customers how was the food but I thought it was because it was the grand opening gesture. Point being, the staff were all nice, accommodating, SMILING and did not have attitudes (unlike some other places which I will avoid in this article). I hope they keep up the friendly service since Asian establishments are notorious for bad service. Just note, that the staff are NOT wearing any uniforms or indications that they work there. Just regular clothes, but you can kind of tell if they start speaking in Vietnamese or walking into the kitchen lol.
Can't wait to see what they will improve on and what changes await for them. I hope the Davis community will support them since they have legit Vietnamese food that isn't compromised by Americanized standards or quantity in their menus. I rather have a smaller menu but more quality food as Pho King IV has established so far. The manager lady I presume even greeted us on the way out and apologized if there were any mishaps during our first visit. My friend and I chuckled, because everything went fine. How nice of them. **Disclaimer on any price errors! Apologies!**
2012-03-15 22:29:01 The older man who served my friend and I gave excellent service, which is why I'm writing here! The food was pretty decent. I ordered the tomato and crab noodle soup, but I specifically asked if there was any beef or any meat in the dish. The guy told me no, just crab and tomato. When I got my dish, there were so much meat in there and a few eggs, which looked nothing like the picture on the menu. The server's English was not good at all, so I tried my best to explain to him I didn't eat that type of meat. Not a problem and no fuss! He took it back and ordered what ever I wanted on the menu, which came out in two minutes! If this happened at the other Pho Bac, I'd probably be getting lots of attitude and they would most likely argue with me. So overall, great experience!! —RebeccaCho
2012-03-16 09:17:45 This is *the* place to go for pho or spicy beef noodles in Davis. Their menu includes other tasty dishes and drinks too (spring rolls, beef/pork rice plates, slow-drip/pressed coffee, fresh squeezed lemonade, etc.)...something for everyone. This is a welcomed addition to the diverse food scene in Davis. —Kiefer
2012-03-16 09:18:49 Went here today around 3PM; the restaurant was packed! My beef noodle soup (with steak) came with bonus tripe, which I was not expecting, and picked out. —JudithTruman
2012-03-17 13:34:19 I have tried the pho at Pho King II in Sacramento but even there, I thought it was only average (the Pho King in Oakland is much better). So really, I went here today with no expectations despite the hype. I tried coming here on Thursday night but they were sold out. Oh well, no biggie, I went to Hoa Viet instead (which I love). But today, I came in just before the next big rush and got seated pretty quickly. But, they were super busy and since my friend and I got the table right next to the door, we were neglected and not given much attention. Since I work at a very busy coffee shop, I understand how stressful and irritating it can be when you have an endless rush of customers. So, I patiently waited for them to both take my order and bring me my pho. When they brought us our food, they forgot to give us the plate of bean sprouts and limes and we had to ask them for it several times. And when we politely let the waitress know that we still didn't get our iced coffee, she gave us an attitude and said "I know. I'm making it now." From where we were sitting, we could look into the kitchen and no, she wasn't making our coffee yet.
Now on to the food. I ordered a #2 which basically comes with everything in the #1 combination but with beef balls. When I got my bowl of pho, the first thing I noticed was the smell of the broth. It had a distinct scent that was strange but not exactly a bad strange - though, not good either. I can't quite put my finger on it but it is a smell that I usually do not like in my pho. I ignored it and put my sliced steak (ALWAYS GET IT ON THE SIDE!! makes a huge difference hehe) into the hot broth. My first sip of the soup was pretty disappointing. The broth tasted watered down and not hearty like I was hoping it would be. The noodles were excellent though. After a few bites, I realized that I did not have any beef balls. So for about 5 minutes (which felt like 10), I tried to flag down a waiter or waitress to let them know. Finally, one of the waitresses came to the rescue and when I told her, she went into the kitchen and brought me some in a bowl of broth. The sliced steak was also disappointing. It was rough and didn't melt in your mouth like it should.
To sum it up, the pho was VERY mediocre, prices are average, and service is a hit or miss (probably depends on how busy they are).
You guys are going to kill me for saying this but YES, I still love Pho Hoa Bac Viet more and would rather go there for pho.
I love pho a lot but this place made me love it not so much. —reeeeeow
2012-03-19 11:47:19 Awesome Bun Bo Hue. One of the best... —PeterNguyen0341
2012-03-19 19:17:06 I visited for dinner last night with my fella. The service was mediocre, as was the food. He ordered the #2, and I ordered the #1. They are essentially the same, but the #2 comes with meatballs. Neither of us got any tripe in our bowl (I can't speak for him, but I was rather looking forward to the tripe). I brought this up when we went to pay. The guy at the counter said "yeah, we ran out of tripe yesterday." I tried to tell him that he should let the servers know to TELL THE CUSTOMERS THAT WHEN THEY ORDER so that we have the option of ordering something different if we want. He smiled and nodded awkwardly and we decided that he didn't understand what I was trying to express.
They also have at least two large flat-screen TV's hanging on the walls, but not turned on. Given that it's such a "cramped" venue, TV's blaring seems like it would be incredibly distracting and a major detractor from the ambiance. I hope they stay turned off.
Overall, I wasn't really impressed. I'll probably give them a couple of weeks to get their act together (the cook doesn't seem to know the menu, based on other comments about missing/additional ingredients in dishes) before I try going there again and hope it's really good. —StephanieStudebaker
2012-03-20 02:40:21 Came here twice, the day after it opened and a couple of days later. Both times in around 2pm-3pm. Both times they were relatively busy but not during rush period. First day I ordered the #2 combo pho. Took a while but finally got the food. The soup base imo, is better than the Hoa Viet. Hoa Viet's soup taste particularly bland compared to good pho. Pho King's soup base has more flavor but it's different. It almost has a slight hint of starnaise in the base, which i don't mind. The texture of the noodle is much better than Hoa Viet and the steak/meats are about equal to Hoa Viet. The beef balls are a bit strange though, they taste very spongy, which I'm not used to. Overall, I enjoyed it more than Hoa Viet's Pho.
2nd trip I went, I ordered the pork chop over rice. The pork chop was very good. Good developing flavors and nicely marinated. That dish was very enjoyable. Only thing is that the waiter didn't know to bring out knife and fork when pork chop is ordered, oh well, at least the food was good.
Over-all my experience at Pho King has been pretty decent but I've had much better. I hope by having pho king around, it gives Hoa Viet incentive to make better pho because they're not the only Pho place in town anymore. Competition is always good. —C.Ling
2012-03-22 20:09:02 Came here twice and had the bun bo hue and the bun rieu. I'm happy to have these options in davis now. The bun bo hue was nicely flavored, but could've been stronger. I wasn't a fan of the bun rieu (my mom makes a wayyy better one). The one here had too much fish sauce. I tried a bit of their pho broth, and it was bland and just a little off in flavor. I actually like Hoa Viet's pho better. Overall, I'm happy to be able to satisfy my bun bo hue craving here! —SaThai
2012-03-23 01:29:54 had the pho here just today. nothing wrong with service, but nothing great with the food either. although they gave me extra noodles free of charge, they were ridiculously overcooked. And the broth, itself, came warm, not hot, as it should have been. all in all, an unwelcomed disappointment. —kiddmit3
2012-03-23 19:26:44 I went here for dinner today. Being from the Bay Area, I wasn't all too impressed with the food, but Pho King IV is a welcome addition to Davis. Decent prices, decent service. I'll be back for more. —Roarasaurus
2012-04-22 19:04:05 This place has the best pho in town hands down. There is a good amount of meat in each portion, the tendon is nice and thick and chewy and the noodles are chewy too. The bun is good too, this is my new favorite place to eat. I have eaten here about 7 times in the last 2 weeks, delicious! —DagonJones
2012-04-30 10:29:46 Tried for the first time with a co-worker. The Pho was Ok, but if you don't like things like tendons, then be careful what you order. My co-worker order a spicy specialty dish and the description did not include that it had tendons. Service wasn't very good. We had to track to our waiter after a long wait and it just wasn't very friendly. Paying was a treat as you have to stand in line while they pull your ticket. Kind of amusing. —LokiAbbi
2012-05-01 16:45:23 This is the best Vietnamese restaurant in Davis. I love their flavorful Pho and Bun No Hue. They also have excellent grilled shrimp with rice noodle. The people here are supernice. Today I got myself locked out from my car and they used their triple A membership to help me get the keys out of the car. I offered to compensate for their membership fee but they did not accept it. Come here more often. Not only the food here is very good, the people here are great too!
2012-05-08 22:14:23 I'm from the Bay Area and while I don't exactly know what exactly is authentic Pho, I can at least gauge if the Pho is good or bad. So I went for a fundraiser at around 1pm on a 90 degrees C temp. (xD!) I arrived and was lucky to have one seat left indoors, otherwise I'd have to eat Pho in the hot weather outside (What a thrill!). I was seated and given ice water. At the time, the place was packed, but most of people were already eating or almost done. I ordered the number 1 (to me, the number 1 is like the norm. I usually order in most Viet places.) (Note: X-Large - about the length of a pair of chopsticks there) and an Iced Viet. Coffee. When the food arrived, the bowl felt hot, which is a good thing. (I was afraid that because it was a hot day, the soup would be warm and not hot). About half-way my meal, I finally received my iced coffee, which I felt should have arrived before my Pho. After finishing everything, I went to paid for about 11 dollars.
Summation: 1= poor, 3 = ok, 5= Great
Taste: I'd say 3.5-4. While the food tasted slightly better than the other Viet. Pho places, I found the taste slightly off from other places I've had before in the Bay. However, I couldn't pinpoint what made me feel the Pho wasn't amazing, but it might have been the hot weather that day that made me feel that way.
Service: 3.5-4. Being an Asian, I wasn't expecting service like a waiter/waitress coming to your table asking if everything is doing good. Considering the quickness of ordering, bringing your food, and everything else, the service is decent. I just didn't give the place a 5, because I'd prefer the drink coming before my Pho.
Price: I would say the pricing is about average for most people. For me, I believe for the price I had to pay was above avereage by a bit, because I didn't find the meal very worth it. The Pho had a good amount of noodles, which I am happy about, but there was a very small amount of meat. At other places I have been to, they serve at least two pieces of tendon, tripe, and the brisket, flank, and sliced steak were placed on top, which covered the bowl's surface area (at least half the bowl). At Pho King, there were barely any tripe, one piece of tendon, and small pieces of meat (flank, sliced steak), and I found only one slice of brisket.
If they placed slightly more meat, I'd be more than willing to pay the price I was billed, but I am willing to try again to see if it was just by chance mine had less meat.
Lastly, the cup of ice coffee didn't feel like it was worth the 2.75. Over more than half the cup was filled with ice, which meant that after a few sips, you were practically done with the drink.
Overall, Pho King 4 isn't a bad place to eat Pho.
—AWai
