There’s one rule when you come to Good Pho You.
Come hungry.
The portions are generous. If you’re ordering pho, your bowl will be filled to the brim with simmering broth, noodles, greens, vegetables, with additions such as chicken, shrimp, pork and beef.
Don’t worry vegetarians. There’s tofu aplenty. If that’s your choice, a yummy broth with noodles and, of course, vegetables, including onions, broccoli and carrots, awaits you.
Prices depend on the ingredients and the size of the serving you order, but range from $7.95 to $9.95.
Two of the diners joining me for lunch had just returned from the Mill Creek Chorale’s European tour, but one came home with a croupy cough. She said she was especially grateful for the broth in the chicken pho, which, like its chicken soup counterpart, always seems to put people on the road to beating the bugs.
A word about portions. Think of it this way: Medium is a large serving in many restaurants. The bowls of pho are packed with noodles, veggies and meat, seafood or tofu. Larger is, well, extra large, which brings us to the menu’s extra large serving — really, really large. For that, don’t just be hungry, be really, really hungry.
You might expect a restaurant like this to have a full complement of Vietnamese food, and you’d be right.
Joining the 18 types of pho on the menu are varieties of banh mi — a Vietnamese sandwich. It’s made with French bread and marinated carrots, cucumbers, daikon radish, cilantro and your choice of grilled pork, chicken or tofu, priced at $6.
Bun tom thit nuong is grilled shrimp and pork with fresh greens and lots of noodles. (Sharon Salyer/ The Herald
Here’s the surprise. The restaurant also offers a variety of Thai food, including a colorful palette of curries — red, green, yellow — for $11.95 and stir fried rice ($10.95 and up). Entrees include spicy Thai basil with choice of meat and bell pepper, onions, green beans and basil leaves and Mongolian beef, with bell peppers, green onions and black bean sauce, served on crispy noodles ($11.95).
The restaurant serves about 150 people a day and can be packed, as it was last weekend. It’s a neighborhood favorite, as is another restaurant in the same strip development, Casa Guerrero.
So why this combination of Vietnamese and Thai food? The owner, Kwanruan “Nok” Panwaegmon, initially worked in Thai restaurants. But a person with experience owning a Vietnamese restaurant taught her many of the specialties of that cuisine as well.
She is bilingual, but asked that her nephew, Daniel Cheah, interpret for her. She came to the United States in 2012 hoping to start her own restaurant. She worked in Thai and Vietnamese restaurants before opening her own in 2014.
She grew up in a northern province of Thailand. She first began learning about cooking at age 17 from her mother, who tutored her in the ways of traditional Thai cuisine.
She is almost always at the restaurant, “seven days a week,” she said.
Panwaegmon said she enjoys being able to sell both Vietnamese and Thai food at the same restaurant.
When asked if she plans on expanding the restaurant, Panwaegmon, 48, said yes — her hope is to open her next restaurant in about three years.
Cooking is central to her life. Her biggest joy, she said, is seeing customers happy and eating.
Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
Good Pho You
Where: 402 164th St. SW, Lynnwood
Hours: 10:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. daily
More: 425-745-9323 or www.facebook.com/Good-PHO-You-294983007211276
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