Pho 7 is an authentic Vietnamese restaurant located on West Pensacola Street. It is a great spot for college students to explore a new cuisine. It is about a three-minute walk from the University Village Shopping Center.
The environment is welcoming and cozy. The interior of the restaurant is quaint, but the smell and the music will transport you through the culture.
Pho 7 has options for everyone: meat lovers, seafood lovers, vegetarians and vegans. The menu consists of 14 categories: Appetizers, Vietnamese subs, salads, beef noodle soup, clear rice noodle, egg noodle soup, bánh canh (Vietnamese noodle soup), dry vermicelli noodles, vermicelli noodle soup, vegetarian dishes, fried rice, jasmine rice platter, Pho 7’s specialty dishes and beverages, including exotic fruit shakes.
None of the food options exceeds $12, which is great, especially for college students who are on a budget.
“Pho (the soup) originated hundreds of years ago in Vietnam and started as a humble street food,” nutritionist Tessa Nguyen, founder of Taste Nutrition Consulting, told Women’s Health Magazine.
In the native language Pho means beef noodle soup. This soup comes withyour choice of meat and rice noodles in a bowl of delicate beef broth with herbs and spices. It is served with a side of bean sprouts, jalapeños, cilantro, Thai basil and lime.
“Pho is a great dish because it features all the components you need: healthy carbohydrates, protein, and fat,” Nguyen told Women’s health Magazine.
I ordered the beef noodle soup with slices of chicken (Pho Ga) because of the benefits it has during flu season. The bone broth hascurative properties; one being that it contains collagen, a protein found in bone marrow. The broth also has minerals and vitamins in it as well.
You can place an order online and pick it up or place your order through Bite Squad if you don’t want to leave your home. If you wanted to dine in you could, but I chose not to due to COVID-19.
If you were to order your food to go like I did, you would receive your order in a bag. Within the bag there is a container with the broth, another container with the noodles, your choice of meat, red and green onions, a small bag with the bean sprouts, jalapeños, cilantro, Thai basil and lime, chop sticks, and condiments of your choice.
The food was aesthetically appealing, and although I didn’t dine in, it felt like I had the Pho experience at home.