Pho Temptation

A group of us went to check out Pho Temptation, a relatively new Vietnamese restaurant along Killiney Road, at lunch today. This is a subsidiary or franchise (not too sure which exactly) of the main outlet in Melbourne, Australia. And friends who have eaten regularly at the Melbourne outlet have said the food is good.

Unfortunately, the pleasant dining experience in Australia does not seem to have been translated into Singapore.

The Vietnamese spring rolls (S$3.00 for 2 rolls) (~US$1.80) were “simple”. There were no mint leaves, no basil, no prawns in the rolls – just a small piece of (rather dry) chicken meat, rice vermicelli, shredded carrots and salad. The accompanying dip was not the normal fish sauce-based peanut dip – but hae chor (prawn paste) with ground peanuts. We would have preferred the traditional fish sauce dip.

The deep fried spring rolls (S$3.00 for 4 pieces) had nice, very crispy skin, but otherwise were fairly ordinary. The fillings were again very simple - just carrots and rice vermicelli.

I had the Beef Steak & Beef Balls Pho (S$7.50) (~US$4.50). There did not seem to be a strong presence of beef stock in the soup base. To be frank, it tasted of just msg, flavoring and water. I don’t like salty food, and yet I found the soup to be rather bland and tasteless. Unfortunately, the nice thin slices of beef were also over-cooked and rather tough, dry and chewy. The beef balls were not bad though – nice springy texture, and the flat rice noodles were nice and smooth.

The Beef Brisket, Beef Steak & Beef Balls Chilli Pho (S$7.50) was more “flavorful” due to the chilli oil added to the standard basic Pho soup, but was otherwise similar to my dish. Oh, this had some lettuce leaves thrown in, whilst mine didn't. And this was served with round rice noodles instead of the flat noodles. (Perhaps they had run out of the flat variety).

Each noodle dish came with a side serving of mint leaves and raw beansprouts. Perhaps, the latter would have tasted better and complemented the noodles more if they had been very, very quickly blanched in boiling water, just to get rid of the “grassy” raw taste, which given the blandness of the stock, overwhelmed the other tastes in the noodle dishes.

The Beef Stew (S$6.50) (~US$3.90), which was highlighted as a “special”, had a nice gravy, though a little on the watery side. The beef was over-cooked, dry and chewy.

The Chicken and Rice (can’t remember what it was called exactly on the menu) (S$6.50) pretty much tasted like how it looked on the plate. Normal…

Everyone ordered the “Three Colors” drink, except me. It had red agar-agar cubes and a couple of red kidney beans in bright red syrup water; some chendol in bright green pandan syrup; very rich and thick coconut cream; topped with coarse crunchy shaved ice. I had a sip – very, very sweet! The pandan flavoring was a little overpowering. But if you like the taste of very, very rich coconut cream, this would be a nice drink.

Service was indifferent at best. Ok, I agree, generally, Singapore is not known for very friendly service, and so we shouldn’t be surprised if we don’t get greeted with smiles or that there were no “thank yous” as we left. However, when we asked the waiter for recommendations from the menu, he just stood there looking at us as if we never asked him a question! He was completely unresponsive to any questions we had! Well, we gave him the benefit of the doubt – maybe he was just having a bad day. However, in the time that we were there, we did not see a single smile from a single staff member to a single customer!

The table tops were sticky from not having been wiped down properly. The music was loud – and… believe it or not, it was heavy rock and either house or acid music (we weren’t sure which exactly). Yes, I know, our ages are showing! But still, hardly what we would call appropriate music to be playing during lunch time in a restaurant that hopes to appeal to a wide cross-section of consumers. Towards the end, the music was grating on us so much that all we wanted to do was finish the meal and get out of there.

There was no service charge or GST.

Are we tempted to return to taste temptation again (pun intended)? The above experience speaks for itself.

After lunch, we walked past two other Vietnamese restaurants in the same block of shophouses. Yes, there are now THREE Viet eating places in that short stretch of 20-something shops. So, one would have thought that given the competition, standards would be held at a high level. Maybe we’ll give the other two a try the next time.

Pho Temptation
73 Killiney Road
Singapore 239528
Tel: 6732 8032

Copyright © 2003 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
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