by Todd SouTh
990 Pho has familiar Vietnamese items like pho and more novel options like avocado smoothies. PHOTO/ALLISON YOUNG
Viet-noms
Next was a cabbage salad topped with roasted duck ($8). The salad veggies and mildly salty dressing were good, but the duck was very dry and full of bone fragments. Much better was a plate of seafood In a market with plenty of options for stir fry with chow fun noodles ($9) and Vietnamese food, recently opened 999 Pho a cold noodle bowl with flame-broiled has some familiar favorites along with other pork ($8). The seafood and veggies were items relatively new to Reno. nicely done and the flavors were good. The I was eager to try a bánh xèo ($7)— broiled pork atop a bowl of vermicelli and essentially a very thin, enormous crepe of veggies was tender and tasty. rice flour, water and turmeric, folded in half A bowl of egg noodle soup ($8) with and stuffed with stir-fried shrimp, pork, veggies, lightly seasoned broth and very bean sprouts and scallion. There was much well-seasoned pork wontons was excelmore crepe than stuffing, but the overall lent. Similarly delicious were bowls of result was still impressive. It was served seafood pho ($9), with perfectly cooked with a big plate of romaine lettuce leaves, shrimp, squid and vermicelli in a really fresh mint and cilantro, which are used good broth and a bowl of very spicy to contain and give flavor to the torn-off broth loaded with noodles, scallion, and pieces of crepe. It’s also served with a an entire salmon steak ($9). The flavor of nước chấm sauce—fish sauce, citrus, sugar the salmon dish was outstanding, though and garlic. The end result is messy but picking bones out of each worth it. bite was tricky. We shared orders of The smoothie menu shrimp-pork and fried pork included both familiar paste spring rolls ($4). The and exotic-to-me tastes 2309 Kietzke Lane, 686-6599 latter featured a flat rect($3.50 each). An avocado 999 Pho is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. angle of processed meat smoothie was lightly sweet reminiscent of Spam, but and strange to my palate, without the salt. The tender yet refreshing. But when shrimp and other ingredients in the shrimpI saw the word durian I knew we had to pork roll were good, but the piece of thinly try it. This infamous fruit is loved by some sliced, incredibly dry pork was a letdown. and reviled by many—even banned in Even with liberal amounts of peanut sauce, some places, due to its pungent odor, which the dish was a bit disappointing. is something akin to rotting garbage and A pair of bánh mì sandwiches ($4)— spoiled meat. Those of us who were game one barbecue pork, the other with pork to try first took a sniff. (Yup, something meat and shredded pork skin—involved unpleasant going on there.) We then each large, crusty baguettes with daikon, took a frozen spoonful from the top. If you cucumber, carrot, cilantro and more of held your breath it was barely offensive. that mildly sweet and citrus fish sauce. However, we took a slurp of the melted As with the crepe, there was more bread result at the end of our meal, and it was than filling, but the flavors were solid. like drinking the juice that collects in the The pork skin is an interesting ingredient, bottom of a trash can, mixed with cream. looking something like a thin noodle but It was really gruesome, but I’m glad I tried with a slightly cartilaginous texture. It it—just never, ever again. Ω tastes better than it sounds.
999 Pho
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