Despite its location amidst furniture stores and chain drugstores, the interior of Pho Saigon is warm and well-appointed, the lighting pleasant. Great Wall this is not. For what it's worth (and the weather may have had something to do with this), the restaurant was hardly busy at 7:30 p.m. on a Saturday night. But we were heartened to be seated next to what appeared to be a Vietnamese family (in any event, they were not speaking English to their waitress)-and that's always a good sign.
As we weighed the respective merits of chicken versus beef, pho versus spring rolls, we deemed it best not to attempt to pronounce the Vietnamese names of dishes like Com Ga Xao Xa Ot (also known as chicken with lemongrass) in favor of using item numbers. Lucky for us, not only did our waiter prefer the number system, but he was also happy to provide recommendations.
For starters, Nick and Sarah split a small bowl of pho with rare steak, flank, tendon and rice noodles ($5.50). The sliced steak-fine in quality and in cut-actually morphed from bright pink to a more medium hue after a few minutes in the boiling broth (à la shabu shabu), and thanks to Nick, who doused the bowl with hot sauce (hey, when in Rome …), the broth was pungent and tangy, but also comforting, like a bowl of chicken noodle soup.
The winner of the battle for best entrée was unquestionably Emily's deep-fried egg noodles with beef ($11.95). The beef burst with flavor and rivaled any filet mignon for tenderness, while the noodles arrived crunchy, only to turn supple on account of their interaction with the savory sauce.
Rachel's seafood egg noodle soup ($6.95) also benefited from a healthy dose of hot sauce. The squid was neither rubbery nor raw, and the broth was so good that Rachel slurped it down like a commuter on a crowded Tokyo subway. Alas, your beloved columnists struck out on their entrées. Nick's hot clay pot with salmon ($10.95) offered copious amounts of salmon – and even more copious amounts of sugar. There's sweet and sour, and then there's just sweet. What Nick had was bad salmon teriyaki.
By contrast, Sarah's chicken with lemongrass ($9.00) lacked any semblance of flavor, sweet or otherwise, despite an accompanying chili pepper on the menu and the promise of hints of lemongrass. The slices of chicken breast were plenty moist, but overall, the dish recalled bad Chinese takeout.
Luckily, Emily, Sarah and Miya all connected on their choices of beverage. Emily's pineapple milkshake ($2.75) was actually closer to an Italian ice, and despite the freezing weather, all five of us enjoyed sipping on it. Miya and Sarah's Vietnamese coffees ($2.50) were thick, sweet and earthy, with hints of chocolate. Miya chose to have hers iced, which was a good decision as the room-temperature milk cooled down Sarah's hot version considerably.
By far, the drive back to Amherst was the most unpleasant part of our visit to Springfield-mainly because of the brewing blizzard (well, it seemed like a blizzard at the time), but also because Pho Saigon is out of the way. And unfortunately, despite its very reasonable prices and large potions, it doesn't deserve the moniker "destination restaurant" unless you are desperately craving some Vietnamese food.