For years you walk by a local eatery without so much as batting an eye. An established business that’s become part of the local scenery as you wait for the buses across the street. After all, Flushing, Queens is known for its many Asian trades. Recently though, my partner and I decided to try Pho Hoang, a long-standing Vietnamese restaurant, right across the street from the Queens Public Library. Its location is in the heart of Kissena Boulevard — in front of many bus stops that take students to Queens College.
The food did not disappoint, even with it being late and anything being worth a shot. We were seated immediately as we scanned the plastic covered menus. If you’re budget conscious, Pho Hoang might be gentle on your wallet. You’re looking at prices on average between ten to twenty dollars per person, not including tip. The atmosphere isn’t an impressive first date pick. Rather, it’s a vibe of working class comfort, for people coming here strictly for the food.
From the menu’s vast selection, we started off with peking roast duck bun appetizers. The buns were filled out with cucumber scallion and sweet hoisin sauce. Not bad, it was light tasting. Not a lot of sauce, but it cubed our hunger somewhat, leaving enough room for the main dish. To be fair, Pho Hoang isn’t completely Vietnamese, as the menu has Cantonese, and other Asian food offerings.
In between bites, the waitresses made sure our tea cups were constantly refilled. It didn’t take long for our main dishes to be served.
Originally, we were going to order Vietnamese vegetarian bahn mi sandwiches, but the rice dishes looked more filling. We got decent portions of both pineapple fried rice and Thai-style fried rice. The pineapple fried rice was the clear winner between the two. It had a balance of both salty and sweet with additional ingredients of raisins, chicken, shrimp, peas and carrots. The Thai-style fried rice which consisted of bell pepper, chicken, tomato, onion, cucumber and egg was decent, but it wasn’t memorable. Glancing at the menu again, other rice dishes included vegetarian fried rice, Portuguese fried rice, salted fish chicken fried rice, golden double egg fried rice and other selections.
If you’re a vegetarian, this place has some options, but it’s really for carnivores. Perhaps you can try your hand with the triple delight, a selection with three choices of roasted meat. There’s also roast pork ribs, beef stew, scallion chicken and more traditional dishes listed on the menu. For seafood lovers, you would fancy marinated cuttlefish, or seafood soup.
For dessert we kept it simple, opting for the beverage of Thai iced tea. Here’s a tip — if you leave a Google review and show the review to your server, the beverage is free. We got no complaints, as the waitress promptly put our complimentary drinks on our table.
In all we were satisfied with the night’s dinner. This restaurant is a Flushing staple that will continue to serve its Queens clientele.
