The firefighter-yellow banner to the left of the entrance tells you the restaurant is called Mi La Cay Noodle House, a name echoed by the neon lights above the short set of stairs leading to the place. But then you look to the right (see pic below) and notice another sign hovering over the establishment. It reads: Song Phat Noodle [...]

Near the bottom of the menu that hovers over the cash register at Toan, there's a small-but-telling sentence. It states that the Silver Spring noodle house does not use MSG in its soups. To say I was startled would be an understatement. "You really don't use MSG?" I asked the young man behind the counter. When he said [...]

Forget hamburgers for a moment. Here's a beef dish you can believe in, even at a place like Lotus Cafe, which casts a wider net than your average tuna fisherman. Seriously, a Vietnamese restaurant that serves calamari fries, coconut shrimp, and a Sex on the Beach cocktail?  Is this place channeling Saigon or Cancun?

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return. This pho parlor [...]

In researching this week's Young & Hungry column on pho in the District, I had a long conversation with Gene Nguyen, owner of the Pho Hot shops in Annandale and Centreville. As  I noted in the column, Nguyen hopes to open one, if not more, pho parlors in the District, but in order to make [...]

The District's latest pho parlor is not really one at all. It's Wagshal's Delicatessen on Massachusetts Avenue NW, where executive chef Ann-Marie James has devised an ingenious take-out version of the Vietnamese noodle soup. Actually, it's less a take-out version, which implies that Wagshal's pho is ready to eat, than it is the adult version [...]

If you live in the District and suddenly get a case of the Pho-king Shakes — that weak-in-the-knees condition that will be cured only with a bowl of rice noodles, fatty brisket, raw round steak, and veggies drowning in beef broth — your remedy requires a long Metro ride to some gray strip-mall outpost in [...]

Rosslyn's Pho 75 has gotten the stamp of approval from blogger Scott Underwood. More than a stamp of approval, actually: "Do you remember when you discovered your favorite food?...Well in my case that answer is yes. About two months ago I discovered pho—Vietnamese noodle soup." Underwood was turned on to Pho 75 by a friend [...]

Pho Saigon 6795 Wilson Blvd, Falls Church, VA 22044 (703) 677-0523 The first time I visited Pho Saigon in the Eden Center, at the urging of a Vietnamese acquaintance, I sat there listlessly over my bowl, wondering who or what was most off: my friend, my thin pho, or my tastebuds. Turns out that Pho [...]

As I had noted in an earlier item, D.C. is not exactly awash in noodle shops. So I was excited to visit Saigon Bistro this weekend, a handsome new Dupont Circle operation that's run, according to its Web site, by some folks who "recently emigrated to the U.S. after running an exquisite Vietnamese gourmet restaurant [...]