Noodle Zone

Address: 858 Southcenter blvd, Tukwila, WA 98188 (South Center Mall Food Court)

Phone: N/A

Prices: $8.95

Rating: 0.1

In an attempt to be fair to pho, I am willing to try any place that claims to sell the wonderful soup. But seeing a mall food court operator selling pho automatically sets off alarms in my head. Noodle Zone proved that these alarms and fears are well founded.

Noodle Zone is located in the food court of the newly remodeled Southcenter Mall. They serve many different Asian noodle dishes and one bowl of what they call pho. When I ordered the beef pho I was handed one of those pagers that you commonly see at places like Olive Garden. I was told it would go off when my food was ready.  I waited a very long time.  Finally I was given a bowl and a small plate of bean sprouts and a small container of hosin sauce. I was told I could find seracha sauce at the end of the counter. I loaded some seracha sauce into the soup and headed for my table.

After my first bite I knew I would have a hard time finishing. It had a strong taste that I cannot put my finger on until a coworker who was enjoying lunch with me said that it smelled strongly of cilantro. In normal pho you might expect cilantro but there was no cilantro to be found in my bowl, only a small about of onions floating around. This lead me to believe that it was some sort of additive. After the cilantro, the next thing I tasted were extremely dry and low quality noodles which I would not expect for the price I paid ($8.95!). Now let me next describe the meat. It was not anything I have ever been served in a true Vietnamese restaurant. It was thick and chunky like you would expect in a Chinese or Thai stir-fry. The meat was also extremely chewy and flavorless.

I would not really call this pho. I tried it but I will never, ever be back. We do not need people watering down the concept of pho.