Pho Ca Dao Restaurant

Another great lunch at Ca Dao yesterday!

Be sure to try the Tofu Sub -- lots of Hoisin sauce and fresh veggies.

The banh mi I ordered to split with my husband? Also fresh and yummy. (It was also somewhat larger than most banh mi I see in other nearby eateries.)

Consistent, amiable servers. (I'm pretty sure this is a family owned and operated restaurant -- no corporate crap here.)

Limited parking in the Jade Plaza Shopping Center right off Classen.

Pho Cao Dao Restaurant

I loved my dinner at Pho Cao Dao Resturant! We were searching for an unpretentious and casual place to have dinner and weren't impressed with the usual suspects in the area and were dying to try something new. We headed to Pho Cao Dao mainly because they accepted cards and we didn't have any cash.

What a delicious spot! I enjoyed a vermicelli dish with shrimp, pork and fried egg roll. It was amazing! I loved all the flavors and the textures in the dish. My wife had another vermicelli dish and loved it as well.

The atmosphere reminds me of my grandmother's house. It's got a nostalgic feel to it-certainly not modern. Honestly, my grandmother cooked some of my favorite dishes of my lifetime and it didn't matter if her kitchen looked modern or not. I feel the same way about this little spot. It feels a bit like grandma's kitchen, but in a good way. I really enjoyed the combo vermicelli plate here as well as the spring rolls. I will certainly be back for dinner soon and wish this little mom & pop spot all the best.

They do take cards and offer delicious from the heart meals. Come and share a meal here with those you love sometime soon.

If you are following me, you have probably noticed that I love Pho!! Really love it. Pho is the national fish of Vietnam, where most homes have a pot of pho going all of the time. In Vietnam they eat Pho for breakfast. That's why many pho restaurants open at 10:00. According to Wikipedia, pho probably came into being between 1900 and 1907. The first pho restaurant was in 1918.

Today the temperatures were in the 30s, so nothing is better than pho on a cold day. This is one of the pho restaurants I like best, and the first pho restaurant in OKC.

The flavor is warm, beefy broth. I like to add hoisin sauce, which is more in line with the North Vietnamese way of eating pho. I also add sriracha sauce which is more like the Hue province of Vietnam.

I also ordered hot tea and the water was too hot.

I'm about 95.128% positive that I may have found my new favorite pho restaurant in OKC.

Nothing calls for pho like :
1. Winters in OKC with gusting winds.
2. Allergy season in OKC with gusting winds.

Soooo... pretty much pho is a year-round food in this town.

Today fell into category two, and I thought I'd mix it up a little bit by branching out, though whether I wanted to try something new or just avoid embarrassment of (yet again) being seen at Pho Hoa for the sixth time this month is debatable. (The staff recognizes me, and my hair isn't red anymore.)

First, let's get down to business. While waiting for my P1, I sat around doot-dee-doo-ing for a while and checking Yelp for more places in town to eat (um, seriously...), so I figured they were cooking noodles to order; it was slow with only two other tables. That arduous extra ten minute wait was worth it. The broth was intense and flavored very strongly with hits of anise and fish sauce, and accompanying vegetables were rinsed and very fresh.

The P1 is my gold standard for comparing pho places... otherwise, how do you know who has the best random cow parts? They use solid chunks of tendon. On fleek. Tripe is still the thin, thin sheet kind that they use at most pho places around town. The brisket was a thicker cut slice, and their other meats in there were great, too. The pho meat quality and thickness was probably the best I've had in town.

I didn't care anymore that this place looks dodgy and dark. I actually didn't want this bowl of pho to end.

But it did... and quickly. For two reasons:
1. They are NOT joking around when they say a small is a SMALL. (PS- no matter where you go, why are small pho sizes always put in this tiny bowl that doesn't give you room to mix your stuff in?)
2. The rule of Asian people being a bottomless pit for noodles and rice still applies. I wasn't even starving though, and I finished the whole thing off. As you can see.

Some things are kinda $$$ here, like their spring rolls. I think it was $4 for 2, which is a huge mark-up compared to other places. Other people say they are delish though, so worth a try with some company next time.

When you walk in, the decor is meh. Slightly dingy with an attempt at a face lift with paint colors, but at the end of the day if you are still painting make-up on a bumpy frog face, you still haven't fixed the fact that it's a frog you're painting make-up on. Like I said though, face in pho bowl means the world around me melts away.

If you're one of our Yelpers that believes that grubby Asian restaurants should have good service, you'll be excited to know that they actually try here!

Anyway, I'll be back this week as neither allergy season nor gusting winds are going anywhere anytime soon, and this time I'm definitely doing the Goldilocks and trying a different size bowl on to find "just right" =)

I think there are 2-3 other Pho joints that I prefer over Pho Ca Dao. Broth here is pretty amazing, very substantial and dark compared to somewhere like Hoa. But maybe not as complex as Cuong. I had an eye round steak and tripe combo (custom build not on menu). Steak was great, tripe was not so much. The traditional garnishments like basil, jalapeño, and bean sprouts were all very fresh which isn't always the case at Pho places. My one irk is that the portions here are the smallest of any in the Asian district's well known Pho establishments. I typical order a small bowl at most places and leave feeling full but not about to explode. I left here satisfied, but not quite full. I looked around and realized everyone in the restaurant had large bowls. Maybe I'll shoot for that next time I return.

This is my favorite pho restaurant in the area. I have been a customer for 15+ years. I don't live in Oklahoma City anymore, but I always get it to go order while I'm in town.

The food is delicious
First time I tried it
More delicious than Pho Lien Hoa
Is what I've decided
The ambiance is not the best
It's a mom & pop shop
But this is a hidden gem
I'm glad I gave it a shot

Best pho place around! Great food and speedy service.
Great for vegans and vegetarians. Their vegan pho is phenomenal! Be sure to try the spring rolls as well!

My husband said to me 'you can't always write a positive yelp review or people won't take you seriously' - so, here it goes. I love pho, I have it at least twice a week. Pho Ca Dao has been on my 'want to try' list for awhile because it had good reviews. So, when Pho Hoa had a wait for a table, we decided to check it out. When we got there at 1:30 on a Friday there wasn't anyone there, which is a red flag in itself. The building was cold and smelled a little smoky or something, seemed dirty. The pho was a little on the cool side, not piping hot. They didn't give us any of the green veg for a 'fixin' and the meat seemed old. Also the noodles were soggy like they'd been sitting in broth for a while. The broth is how I usually judge pho, and this was just meh. Overall this is my least favorite pho experience in the city, won't be back.

To start off, there are plenty of PHO options in Okc, but there are very few that offer a Vegetarian soup. Even if they offer a veg, it has beef broth. Ca Dao has an awesome Pho Chay (Vegan), and rad veg spring rolls.

So for all you veg heads out there lookin for Pho, this is the jam.