Pho Minh

This place had the best pho I've ever tasted. After much searching through out all of the SGV, this place was the ultimate find.

The broth was made from the bath water of the Gods. We're talking real broth here; cooked for 10 hours straight. No MSG! Super lite and clear looking, but with a taste that captured the essence of the beef.  
Everything on the menu that I tried was amazing and of the best quality. Even the sides for the soup looked immaculate and fresh.

The service was phenomenal! Eric (The Owner) was a super awesome guy and always made sure his customers were happy. Our food was always brought out with a smile.

If only it had been in a better location and they had more traffic, I'd still be going there every Sunday for breakfast. It is very sad that a lot of very subpar pho places are still open simply because of they're location.  

At least I got to taste the broth of the gods a few dozen times.

YES, this place is very good and like some people say, it's a bit tricky to find.  It's a gem of a place that could do so much better if it had a better location.  

The food was excellent.  I had the #1 which is pho noodle soup with filet mignon ($6.50) and my friend had the pho tai (rare steak).  The broth is very tasty, meat was tender, but the noodles got stuck to each other, so they would break up into small pieces, which made it harder to eat.  I had a large bowl and couldn't finish, so I'll get a medium next time.

The service was quick, efficient and friendly.  I'd definitely go back.  The neighborhood isn't the greatest either.

Cheers!

Make sure you don't get curious and start looking around because you might get grossed out like I did. I'll spare you and not get into details. The restaurant is actually pretty sizeable. It's separated into two rooms. The tables looked like they were new and the booths were nice and well kept.

The menu is mostly pho so don't come here expecting to order some fancy broken rice dish. I got the iced tea (which is FREE) and a large pho with brisket, flank, tendon, and tripe. We also got an order of egg rolls. They gave us a plate of vegetables that looked to be rather meager. We only got two lettuce wraps for the four of us! Luckily, only two of us actually ate them.

I'm not sure if we came at an awkward time (approximately 5:30PM) but our pho took longer than normal to come out. I'm use to giving my order and literally minutes later have some dude walk out with our bowls of pho held on a plastic tray. With that long of a wait I was expecting some out of this world pho but all I probably got was some above average pho. The broth didn't stick out as much as I wanted to but the flavor was still good in my book. The large gives you just a ton of noodles and meat. I wasn't able to finish it! I fail.

I'm not sure if I'd ever come out of my way and come back here. It looks like my quest to find the best pho joint in South El Monte is still on!

SAVE THIS RESTAURANT.

For the love of God. Eric needs to get married to a nice Vietnamese chic, and if this kid's shop fails, he ain't gonna be able to ever hit Commerce again.

latimes.com/news/local/l…

I've panned many a restaurants in the last decade of being a grubbin fool, yet Pho Minh has done me right every time. From the rich bun bo hue, to the grassy green rau ma, we dig this resto.

Erik M, the Chicago grubber extraordinaire, and I combed every Pho shop on Garvey 6 months before Mr. J Gold wrote up his LA Weekly article. Pho Minh's product was beautiful then, and it is still beautiful now.

So it's labor day and I'm being a bum and watching Bourdain and he's in Laos scarfing on Pho.  So what happens? We get a hankering for some noodles and decide to try Pho Minh to reduce my bookmark list.

I've read the Jonathan Gold article as well as the article in the LA  Times and my expectations were high for this place.  The broth was good but superior to all others-NOT.  It does get high marks for being hot.  I hate ordering pho or any other soup and it's just warm.

Noodles and beef were good.  The egg rolls were good.  Service was very good.

With all the Pho in San Gabriel and Alhambra, I doubt I'll drive back here.  It was alright but not outstanding.

#38

It was Memorial Day and we were trying to figure out what to eat for lunch. My mom mentioned she read about Pho Minh in the LA Times so we decided to give it a try.

It's located in El Monte on a stretch of Garvey that's inundated with pho competition. The LA Times calls this stretch the pho capital of LA county. Pho Minh is set back from Garvey in a small strip mall. Unless you are specifically looking for it, you're going to miss it.

I ordered the #10, which has rare and well beef flank. I went with the large bowl ($5.55); the regular size is $4.75. Overall, the meat and noodles were good. But, what really stands out is the soup base. It's not nearly as oily or salty as most pho broths, which makes it lighter but still full flavored. The best part of it was that I managed to avoid the usual post-pho food coma. +1

We shared an order of their fried eggs rolls. They were excellent - a must order.

Their iced coffee w/ condensed milk was also tasty. In general, it might be a little sweeter than other places but that plays to my preference anyhow.

The service was pretty good. Lunch didn't seem too busy, but maybe it was due to the Memorial Day holiday. I'd definitely recommend this place and hopefully I'll be back soon!

Just came here today with my brother to try it out. It's pho. I didn't think anything special of it, it tastes better than the typical pho "number." My brother thinks it's just as good as Golden Deli/Saigon Flavor or Noodle City. The only thing that made it better was that it was $10 for the both of us including the coke he ordered. He left $2 tip because he thought they charged us incorrectly.

Unless you have friends that are anti-MSG I wouldn't bother checking it out really. I wouldn't see myself coming back here just because leaving the parking lot was a pain.

Good if you frequent that neighborhood a lot, but I hardly go down there so there's no point in making the trip. If I happen to be out there I'll hit it up if I feel like pho.

Classy.

Broth was exquisite; noodles a good level of chewiness; the beef nice and tender as it slowly cooked in the bowl; service impeccable.

A small bowl of the #10 with an iced coffee cost exactly $7. A large bowl would've cost a few coins more (~$5.50), but the small bowl was surprisingly filling.

Caveats: Other than spring rolls, I only noticed pho-related items on the lunch menu; not sure if they also serve vermicelli/bun or rice plates. Also, don't go there after reading Jonathan Gold and the LA Times thinking you'll be seeing visions of the Virgin Mary in the soup. It's a low cost, but good quality, basic pho joint; it's not the Louvre of noodle houses.

This place is a bit hard to find. It's tucked in the back of a long mini-mall. There's ample parking- smiling already. I didn't expect much because the friend who brought me here reads eater.com and fancies himself as a gourmand. He's always jacking my favorite restaurants so I only take him to mediocre places. Yea, I'm a hater, I know.

So with very low expectations, I came away most impressed. I had the special spicy noodle, usually served with pig blood and other organ parts but the nice dude that runs the place made substitutions for me. I got it with rare steak, no pig blood and rice noodles. It was rich and a bit oily but unfortunately for my high cholesterol self, this is a sign of yummy.  It was a symphonic savory concert in my mouth. All the ingredients came in perfect cue and pitch. It reminded me of tan tan men but it was beefy.  The egg rolls were long and substantial- not like some other places that roll them up so skinny like a Capri cigarette. This was like a Presidente cigar! Me likey.

They give you free jasmine iced tea and the place was clean and fast on their service feet. I have to give them a hearty recommendation. Please go because I don't want them to close. Places like this need to thrive to prevent crappy places like Pho 2000 from taking over.

I believe "Kevin C" has made a mistake and posted his low review on the wrong restaurant - too bad because this one deserved the 5 star record it had. Pho Minh located at 9646 Garvey Ave, Ste 108, South El Monte, CA 91733 closed several years ago in 2013 or 2014 (to my great disappointment). This obviously predates "Kevin C's" review and he should remove it.

It was the only Pho I could find in the area that is made as it should be (cooked many hours or overnight). There was no skimping here to achieve the full beautiful flavor. (Most "pho" restaurants cheat their customers by using MSG - always a horrible result). "Victor R."'s review from 9/2/13 nails what the experience was like here.

I'm only posting now to ask if Victor or anyone else who loved this place knows if the owner relocated? Or, has anyone found another Pho restaurant in the area of equal quality (No MSG!!)? If so please post the info here so I and others can enjoy a new place to get our Pho comfort food fix.
Thanks!