Pho Phu Quoc aka PPQ Restaurant
Category: Vietnamese [Edit]
Neighborhood: Outer Sunset1816 Irving Street
(between 19th Ave & 20th Ave)
San Francisco, CA 94122 (415) 661-8869
- Hours:
Mon-Sat 10:30 a.m.-11:00 p.m.
Sun 10:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m. - Price Range: $
- Accepts Credit Cards: No
- Parking: Street
- Attire: Casual
- Good for Groups: Yes
- Good for Kids: Yes
- Takes Reservations: No
- Delivers: No
- Take-out: Yes
- Waiter Service: Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
- Outdoor Seating: No
- Good for: Dinner, Lunch
- Alcohol: Beer & Wine Only
36 reviews
Neighborhood: Outer Richmond
"This is the kind of place only Yelpers seem to find. Following positive recommendations, we wound up at this simple restaurant in the…" read more »
241 Reviews for Pho Phu Quoc aka PPQ Restaurant
Honestly, forget about their Pho and everything else. Just order the Bun Rieu which at a large bowl around $7.25 is a bit pricey, it's well worth it. Piping hot bowl of vermicelli noodles, a loaf of fried tofu, some 'fancy pork' and crab meat, shrimp paste and egg. it's different, its foreign, it's insanely good. Just be careful and take your time unlike me who dove right in and burned my tongue and roof of mouth from the start. Nevertheless, it's awesome.
Oh and don''t forget their Cha Gio too. Pretty authentic!
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Another great cheap eats on Irving and more pho for your money.
Can't see why this place is always so busy with other restaurants in the area or the same block for that matter. After eating here again, I can see why. The pho, vermicelli bowls, rice plates are all good size portions.
The 5 spice chicken is better than I've eaten at other places, pho seemed decent, and we left fully satisfied. 3.5 stars* Not the best I've ever had, but if you're looking for a casual quick bite or you're in a rush to get to a show afterwards this place does the trick.
I finally got a chance to try this popular restaurant yesterday, and I'd have to agree that all of the positive reviews are justified. They make a good bowl of pho at lightning fast speed.
While I've often eaten at Pho Hoa Hiep (now Pho Huynh Hiep 2) across the street I decided to give PPQ a try. The restaurant was quite busy, but there were still a few tables available. The waitress gave me a hand signal to take a seat. The big menu features a wide selection of appetizers, pho, bun, rice dishes and main entrees. There are also specials posted on the wall. A kettle of hot tea is brought to you as soon as you are seated.
I ordered a large bowl of the #6 Seafood Combo Noodle Soup. A plate of bean sprouts, lemongrass and sliced jalapenos was brought to the table and almost immediately after that came my gigantic bowl of pho. I'd estimate the wait was less than 2 minutes. The piping hot chicken broth was clear and I could see a mountain of rice vermicelli sitting in the middle of the bowl. Shredded pieces of silvery lettuce floated on top of the flavorful broth, which featured fish balls, fish cake, tender slices of calamari and firm, butterflied shrimp. Overall, it was a very good bowl of soup.
I'll probably stick to Pho Hoa Hiep across the street, but its nice to know there is a good alternative at PPQ.
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I love pho, because.......
its cheap, and sooooooooooooooo fillingly good.
The #1 is a MUST, always. If a Viet restaurant doesnt have combo beef noodle soup as their #1 on their menu, its not authentic.
The Charbroiled [whatever kind of meat you want: beef, shrimp, pork, or chicken] Wraps are sooooooooooooo good i dont even want to tell people about it. You basically make your own spring rolls. They give you the rice wrap and then you dip it in hot boiling water and its like magic, it becomes translucent and then you put whatever you want in it, your meat, mint leaves, carrots, bean sprouts, cucumber, lettuce, rice noodles, and WRAP, then DIP in fish sauce and GOBBLE!!!!
you will not regret it.
i should minus one star, because you stink after you eat here, smell like pho for life.
Bring CASH, cash only.
This is my friends' go-to place for Vietnamese food. They were somewhat hesitant about taking me here. Perhaps in fear of me ripping apart their favorite Viet restaurant.
No need to fear guys. This place might not be legit Vietnamese, but they do serve decent food. Maybe not the greatest, but not the worst either. Their noodle soups come with way too much noodles. It would be better if they decreased the amount of noodles and increased the amount of meat and other goodies.
Gave em 3 shots, didn't like anything I ordered here.
They don't understand it when I order in Vietnamese. LOL.
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the pho broth tastes really bland!
My roommate ordered the com suong nuong through take out. but they gave him grilled pork instead. we didnt realize this until we got home. doh!
service totally sucks here too. the cashier kept on rolling her eyes and ignoring us.
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there may be a wait, but it's short and worth it.
i spent more money on booze than food going here... but i didn't order any alcohol! wth you ask?
byob
i went across the street to the liquor store and bought $35 worth of beer! i only bought 3 beers, and they were big ones -mostly Belgian.
the bun was good, not too big, not too small. fast, tasty, yum.
Decent Vietnamese food here. I usually order the pork chop with egg over rice dish. It's good, but it's not the best I've had. I also tried their beef noodle soup (pho), which I might add that it's improved this year versus 3-4 years ago. Before the soup used to taste like it didn't have enough MSG to it or the soup base/beef bones weren't boiled long enough to enhance the flavor.
Not really great pho. The soup was really really bland.
Nor would I say this is "Pho-nomenal."
I'd recommend going to Pho Clement still.
I wanted rice. My friends wanted pho. We came here.
Against my better judgment, I got curry. Hey, Thailand is right next to Vietnam and I love Thai curry. Can't be THAT different, can it?
Yes, yes it can. It was watery and not thick and saucy. No likey. Other stuff looked pretty good.
Three stars cuz it's still worth eating at if I should be in the area and not craving curry.
The best Five Spice Chicken ever. It's my family's place....so get off my back.
There is a great group of loyal customers here and I love hearing from friends and co-workers that just light up when I tell them my relatives own the place.
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A pho staple for those in the sunset area of SF. We seem to always head here the morning after...
Inexpensive and large portions. I had the shredded chicken with flat noodle soup which was great.
Frickin' Grilled Pork Skewers and Veggie Spring rolls to start...and the signature Beef Satay noodle soup (very nicely spicy) aka Soup #5, for my entree...WHAT???!!! My wife had the #1 (Beef steak, tendon & Tripe soup) my son had the chicken in Coconut milk Curry rice plate and my sister had the Coconut milk Curry vermicelli soup. (My younger son is a picky eater, so he smuggled in a slice of pepperoni pizza from across the street @ Irving St. Pizza.)
"PPQ" was definitely all that it was cracked up to be. I loved it! This place gets PACKED for dinner, so be prepared. My only problem was that there were so many damn items on the menu that I wanted to try. I guess that means I have to go back, right? Right.
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It's not the best pho, but the best beef!
The broth is okay, but doesn't seem authentic enough; however, the beef makes up for it. Other places have good broth but are boggled down by the cheap chewy beef.
Overall, this place is good, cheap and consistent.
I got the rice plate with shredded pork, pork, and egg patty(?) I like it and I normally don't like the egg patty because other places are a bit dry. This place didn't whoa me though, perhaps I'll try the pho next time.
Do yourself a favor and go across the street to Kevin's Noodle House because this place here is absolutely horrible. If you want WATER DOWN PHO and a anemic portion of beef than this is the restaurant to go too. Oh Yeah, a large bowl is a rip off $7.25.
This is my fav place to get some pho. It's like your typical pho place with good food and not so great service. My fav dish here is not even Vietnamese haha. I love their curry noodles, which is under the pho menu. It is actually served with vermicelli noodles, and is in a brothy curry soup, so its no where near pho. It has white meat chicken and potatoes in it. I actually really enjoy it with pho noodles instead of vermicelli noodles; waaaay better this way. Their Vietnamese chicken salad has a lot of cabbage, less chicken. Their vermicelli with grilled pork and eggrolls is really good. Their pho is good as well.
Cash only boooo :P but pretty normal for a Vietnamese place. and booo for this being a Vietnamese place run by Chinese who can't understand me when I order in Vietnamese. and theyre closed on Sundays.
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I've eaten here a number of times, and I've enjoyed their rare beef pho. The soup base is good. The imperial rolls, fresh shrimp rolls, curry chicken vermicello pho, 5 spice chicken and bbq beef dish with rice area all yummy too.
Service was fast and the service was ok, too. I'll be back....
OK, I've had Pho pretty much everywhere in the Richmond and tried a few places in the Sunset. Nothing ever compared to PPQ - my first Pho EVER.
I tried a few items besides Pho, that seabass is to die for, but lately all I've been having is the Coconut Chicken Pho and holy cow it's amazing.
I just can't get enough. It's spicy, flavorful, chicken-y, noodley, mmmmmmmm
It's seriously the best Pho in the world.
3 words... CHEAP.... GOOD... SATISFYING...
Seafood Pho please! I love this place... large portions... pretty healthy... fast service. Great if your on a budget....
Nothing like some Angus beef pho w/ a shrimp and papaya salad to start...EVERYTHING is clean and fresh. Can't wait to hit this up again when I'm back in the Bay.
Good luck trying to convince me to get Pho anywhere else. Some of my friends have convinced me to go elsewhere and I am always upset about the calories, time and effort wasted. No more!
I've had many other items on their menu and overall I think it's the best Vietnamese for the $. Not oversauced. Not dripping in oil. Just the right blend of herbs & spices.
One other thing I really like... there are only rare moments this place doesn't have people waiting... This means everything is fresh! I've never had wilted veggies accompany my pho. The service is fast... though I've been going there for years and barely get a smile. As long as they keep it coming, I can forego the formalities. I'm charming enough for us all!
This place has the best imperial rolls. The grilled meats are very good too. It's a little higher priced than other Vietnamese restaurants. Sometimes there's a wait for dinner, especially on weekends and holidays. Parking is difficult so plan to park and walk a few blocks.
PPQ YUM!!!
I'm spoiled to live close to it!!
Here's the our usual order and why the 4 stars:
5 spice chicken with rice, large seafood soup
and one thai ice tea!!!!
YUM!!!!!
always quick if i eat there or pick up & not too expensive
one star subtracted because they don't take credit cards!!
c'mon i'm trying to earn all the mileage I can using my debit card so maybe my many orders from PPQ can pay for a vacay!! LMAO!!
I didn't realize that this place gets hated on.
Ok fine. This place might not have the best pho in the world, and it may be slighly over-priced compared to the more authentic pho places on Tully Rd. in San Jose, but it's good and satisfying. I would choose this place over the other options in the inner sunset. A solid 3 stars....
...but PPQ, you get 3 stars and my love for consistently frying up imperial rolls to perfection and for giving me the choice of putting my 5-spice chicken either in my bun (on my not so soupy days) or on the side of my pho (on my soupy days).
I have had a lot of Vietnamese around the city, and I have to say PPQ is probably the best. best tasting.
if you want cheap cheap pho, go across the street. but go pho comes with a price.
Very solid, competent Vietnamese fare... outside of the pho! Every item here is pretty tasty, except for the pho! Grilled meats are nicely marinated and seared, rice is pretty fragrant jasmine long grain, curry is light but has a pleasant flavor (great on a warm evening), imperial rolls are tasty (just watch out for hard bits in the filling, which not uncommon here it seems), goi cuon (cold shrimp rolls) are fine, just... the pho is not very good here. Why? The broth is just not robust enough. It's pretty anemic, actually. That's the Achilles Heel of PPQ.
I mean, so what if the prices have gone up over the years or the service has always been so-so at best, at least everything (except for the pho) is still pretty big and tasty.
4 stars for the stalwart PPQ. Plus, this is where I met Miss Tasaki for the first time. That's sentimental value right there haha!
its pretty Pho king good for the Pho king price. authentic so please give your soup bowls, chopsticks and spoons a good wipe-down.
This is one of the first places I visited when I came to SF. It is a family fave. Went Saturday after a long hiatus (sold my car and live in Russian Hill so I can't get there too often) and it was just as good. They'd even remodeled! Had the spicy coconut chicken pho - yum! I think I'll come here more often, the 28 goes right there! Too bad for my bf, he'll really love being dragged out there!
Oh yeah, if I ever have another BF, this is going to be a test place for him. I took another BF there, who hated it cause it was divey... he turned out to be a total wus... I should have known! Next time, I'll take someone here on the 3rd date, and if they are don't like it they are out!
This place is quite tasty - tell tale sign by how it's always packed!
They have so many things on the menu and most of them are pretty good but in my opinion, not that authentic. You know how if you're good at one thing, you stick to that? This isn't the case. It's a little diluted. You must try since everyone & their mother's been there but then after you've tried it, go across the street to a more authentic pho house.
I know I'm a pho-snob, hence my profile.... With a name like this, I'd go by PPQ too!
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Absolutely the best pho within striking distance. Perfect noodles paired with quality indgredients. That means Angus beef, as advertised on their window, fresh vegetables and tofu. Portion size fits the price. Pho broth is genuinely broth and not just water with MSG. The bun (cold noodle) dish contains a good balance of both noodles and the lettuce-bean sprout-veggie salad. You can't go wrong with any of the rice dishes either. This place does not earn five stars because you have to deal with a stinky bathroom if you sit too far in the back of the place. Also, be prepared to wait 10 to 15 minutes during peak times.
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I was really upset when i got my #1 large Bowl of Pho today, really upset... THERE WAS ONLY ONE FREAKING BEEF BALL! ONE!... wait scratch that.. HALF A BEEF BALL! shouldn't there be a couple halves or a few. I'm really upset! But even though there was only HALF a beef ball, the portions were huge! and there was good portion of meat, so i can't complain all too much..(beef balls are so good though). The flavor of the broth wasn't all that great today, some days it's good, sometimes not.. i guess it's a hit or miss.
The Egg Rolls tasted really divine today. One of the best Vietnamese egg rolls i had in awhile.
I think if i come back again, I'll try the spicy satay beef noodle soup, that looked very appetizing on the menu.
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Mmmmmm. Pho is one of the best culinary inventions known to man. Being a soup junkie, I used to visit PPQ around once a week when I lived in the Sunset. I get to visit less frequently now days, but I do visit every chance I get. Go for the pork or chicken satay skewers to go with your Pho dish, a perfect compliment, and will surely fill you up.
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Is it good or bad to get pho one night and then, after showering and changing clothes, to still smell and taste it the following day?
Pretty good service, huge portions - a bit pricey for anything that is not a small bowl of pho.
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PPQ is back in my good graces after some recent consistency issues involving their broth flavor and portionings. The service is always friendly and efficient, especially now that the grumpy register lady is gone, what a relief.
Been coming here for a decade and it will remain forever one of my San Francisco standbys. The #8 -- coconut curry chicken vermicelli soup -- is the most effective hangover, PMS and heartbreak cure I have ever found. Not sure why but it makes me go weak with endorphins. Which if you have ever been around me when I have PMS, you would probably want me mainlining on a drip-IV. Hangovers, I am much more tolerable, just somewhat foggy and lethargic. The chicken curry clears the fog in my head and over the avenues too. I will share with you my little secret: you can order it with pho noodles instead of vermicelli for a nice variation on the usual texture & flavor. The waiters are accustomed to this substitution, so don't worry, they won't look at you funny.
Other mentionables are the imperial rolls, vegetarian spring rolls and the 5 Spice Chicken, which you can order as a side to your other dishes. I am not crazy for their pho -- I find the broth lacking and often watered down. Sometimes it can be good though. You just have to catch them on the right night. Speaking of night, my meal is for some reason 8 times better when I eat here at night, compared to lunch. My curry chicken soup has been fraught with flavor and texture problems when ordered at lunch. I also find it is more crowded at lunch, especially weekends.
Attention purists: the herb plate a lot of times comes with lemons, not limes. I know, what a travesty. Don't ask me why they do this. That's just how they roll. Doesn't bother me though... lemon actually goes better with the #8 than lime. And with #8 on the menu, why order anything else? So maybe if you are finnicky about having lime in your pho, this might not be the perfect spot for you.
P.S. if you get cold easily, try for a table in the back as it can get a little drafty by the front door.
Conclusion: a happy return to 4 hot cocks
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Dependable.
This is our neighborhood pho joint.
My bf and I like:
- Five spice chicken pho
- Beef satay noodle soup (spicy)
- Pork vermicelli bowl
- Pho with everything
- Roast duck noodle soup
We go here for late dinners and take-out sometimes.
Pho Hoa Hiep is across the street. I still haven't given that one a try..
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fresh and hot food,clean, polite, and fast.
vietnamese carpaccio is amazing!
chicken salad too.
My friend owns this place and I've known the two of them for over 7 years now, yet I still eat a lot across the street. Haha. I must admit that when I eat here every now and then, it is far better than eating at the other pho place across the street. Though the pho may cost more, at least it tastes better. I was upset that I only got 1 big fatty meatball, but I guess thats how they roll now. The place is also clean, so thats a plus. The place is rather narrow and cluttered, but overall, not a bad place.
Prices have been going up lately, but it's so crowded all the time, so how can you blame them? My parents and I used to go here every Friday night, circa 2000-2001. I think everything on the menu was about $1.50-$2 cheaper back then, but PPQ is by no means "expensive."
I pretty much always order the large Curry Chicken Noodle Soup "with Pho noodles," and if I'm hungry, I get it with EXTRA noodles (very filling). They used to give me a weird look whenever I said this, but they don't anymore ;) If you like your food a little spicy, this is delicious. The vermicelli noodles that come standard with that dish just don't retain the taste of the curry broth, and it ends up tasting like... vermicelli noodles and nothing else.
Go here with your Bros/Gals when you just wanna have a cheap night out and chill, OR you're curious what kind of person your date is. Any lady who is cool is PPQ is cool with me. (Disclaimer: Don't take her here if you're trying to impress her, such as on Valentine's or on Anniversaries.)
They DO have BEER. I don't know why there are 17 votes that say "none."
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