One of my friends Ken Nickel Lane who lives in Edmonton loves food and recently updated me on some of his favourite places to eat Vietnamese food. Ken Nickel Lane loves food and lives there so he has a good handle on the Best Edmonton Vietnamese Food.
Edmonton Vietnamese.
So many places, lots of good food, spoiled for choice, and most people are pretty adamant about their go-to’s.
My take, there’s no one winner. Too much variety in the dishes, and some just excel in some things, while other dishes do not.
For us, the main categories are apps, “in a bowl” (vermicelli), Pho, and Banh Mi. No one restaurant does them all spectacularly, but some do a couple very well.
Highlights for us so far:
1. Lemongrass. Consistently very good in bowl, some days exceptionally good. Our most common go-to place (nod again to Patti). Consensus, the best GO cakes in town, the best flavour and texture all the time. Good spring rolls and salad rolls. Soups, not so much. Not for us anyway. Ordered a couple of times and did.
2. Pagolac. Still sorely miss the old one on 97st, but hey Ho. Some of those ladies are still at the one by Argyll. A very close second to Lemongrass on all the same dishes, can’t comment on the soups yet.
3. Golden Bird. This was our occasional backup when the old Pags would be closed for whatever reason. Didn’t ever think it was as good as Pags, but an okay backup when needed. That said, we did give it a go again recently, and frankly we were all pretty blown away. We had bowl, pho, GOs, spring rolls and coffee. All were pronounced excellent by our critical little crew. Okay, GO’s a bit overdone, and same with a couple of spring rolls but still. My pho was especially good, and the spring rolls were old school using rice wrappers which is rare around here, and by far my fav. First time for the kids to try those and their new favourite version. Some of you might remember an old late-night haunt on Jasper, New Sea Palace. A proper pit, but killer spring rolls made this way, and an amazing spicey fried crab with black bean sauce. If anyone knows a place that makes that, please share!
4. Pho Hanh Pasteur (sp?). Best pho in the city so far. Given the proximity, we go to the one near Kingsway. Have tried several, and easily the best broth so far, and great variety. The bowl and apps are fine, enough to get a “pretty good” from the kids, but you’re coming here for the soup, no question.
5. Nhon Hoa. Go to Banh Mi. We’ve tried several, and they’re always excellent, and probably the cheapest in town. Their salad rolls are pretty good, sauce is a bit weak, but the rolls are good, and passable in a bowl as well. Again though, you’re coming here for the Banh Mi.
6. Van Loc. around the corner from Nhon Hoa. New young cats took over, and the food is better than in the past. Have only tried a couple so far, their traditional assorted which was excellent, arguably better than Nhon Hoa, but a lemongrass pork, that was really tasty, but pretty light on the meat. A bit pricier, but will keep giving it a go now and again. They do a featured special banh mi as well, which I realized too late one day. Marinated crispy pork belly, keen to give that a go one of these days.
Those are the highlights for us so far. Tried a few others that have been less exciting for one reason or another, Thanh Thanh is one that many dig as an example, but we thought was just sorta okay.
What about you all? Any favourite places we should give a try not mentioned above?
* The photo is from Lemongrass by the way
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