Pho Hoa

Today we tried Pho Hoa, a Vietnamese restaurant at 409 Hancock Street in North Quincy that calls itself the "Health Conscious Choice."  It's a new place in an old bank building on the corner of Hancock and Billings, and according to its website, it's part of a large international chain with other locations throughout North America and Asia. I've driven by it a few times and was intrigued.  I hesitated checking it out because I was worried about parking. Today, we were originally planning on trying out Quincy Dynasty, which is just down the street, but when we found parking right by Pho Hoa, we decided to try it out. We'll try Quincy Dynasty some other time.

All right, so before I go on, I'll acknowledge that this place isn't actually a Chinese restaurant. But for the greater goal of finding more interesting restaurants in Quincy, this place qualifies.

Although it's apparently a chain, it had the feel of a locally-owned restaurant. We sat in a booth and Ian was pretty impressed because I think it's the first time we've eaten in a restaurant where he wasn't sitting in a high chair. The restaurant was very clean and not crowded at about 5:45 when we got there.

We ordered vegetarian spring rolls as an appetizer, and then Jim ordered beef pho (the famous Vietnamese soup), I ordered Goi Dau (cabbage salad with tofu), and we got chicken stir fry with egg noodles for the kids. There were many varieties of beef pho - they had a whole page on the menu dedicated to pho. But they also had a vegetarian section of the menu, which I really appreciate.

Customer service was generally pretty good, though for some reason, just as in other Vietnamese and Thai restaurants that we've been to, they don't bring all the food out together. The spring rolls came out first (as expected). Then my dish came out, followed by Jim's. About 5 minutes later, the kids' dish came out. But the wait staff was very nice and brought us napkins when Ian spilled an entire glass of water all over the table, floor and down his shirt and pants. No one seemed to be put out when Ian screamed (such as when we took the glass of water away, took away a spoon he was about to throw across the room, etc).

Both of us felt that the food was OK - not as good as Pho Pasteur, a Vietnamese restaurant we frequent in Boston, but still quite good. Everything was freshly made and plated well.

What was cool is that both kids tried (and liked) the food! Annie ate all of the chicken, as well as some noodles and some of the vegetables in her dish. She even experimented with chopsticks. Ian wouldn't touch the chicken dish, but liked Jim's pho!

He insisted on feeding it to himself, which meant that he got lots of pho on his clothes, seat and floor. But some ended up in his mouth! Jim ended up putting the bowl right under his chin to try to catch the drippage. Ian also had a couple of bites of the spring roll and some noodles. Not bad!

It was quite reasonably priced - the bill came to $30 for three dinners with an appetizer.

And in the end, parking wasn't a problem. They advertise on their door that there is parking in the back, though I'm not sure if they just mean further down on Billings (where we parked) or some secret parking lot. However, if you drive down Billings towards the railroad tracks, there are a good number of parking spaces on the street. We'll keep this in mind when we try out Quincy Dynasty sometime.

All in all, this is definitely a place I'd go back to, though I think that if I were to choose between this place and Pho Pasteur, Pho Pasteur is going to win every time. The advantage to this place is that we don't have to venture into Boston to enjoy good Vietnamese food! As a side note, there seemed to be a good number of interesting restaurants on Billings Road. There was a Japanese restaurant across the street, and next door was a Chinese seafood restaurant. So we'll be back.

Ming's Seafood

This week we tried Ming's Seafood at 1 Brook Street, Quincy (it's actually on Newport Avenue in Wollaston, about a block from La Paloma). This place came recommended to me by the same friend whose parents are from Hong Kong and who recommended Yummy last time. The word was that it had very good food, but got crowded quickly.

It being Saturday night, we knew we had to get there early if we wanted to get a table. We arrived at 5 and there were already a couple of families eating, but there were still plenty of tables. Both diners and staff all seemed to speak Cantonese as a first language - a good sign. Also, I've always been told that the mark of an authentic Chinese restaurant is when you see tanks of fish in the window, and sure enough, there was a whole wall of fish tanks as we walked in, full of crabs, lobster, shrimp, and some fish. These were not for decoration; rather, they serve really fresh fish here.

Jim ordered the Beef Chow Foon again, and I ordered Shrimp Lo Mein. We ordered vegetarian spring rolls as an appetizer, and ordered Chicken Udon for the kids. After a few minutes, they brought out heaping portions of the food, and it was all really good. Nothing was too greasy or too salty.

Jim liked the Beef Chow Foon here better than at Yummy Cafe. I also want to mention that Annie tried all three dishes! (We promised her dessert if she tried everyone's dish). She said she liked everything except the onions in Jim's dish.

The service was also excellent. Everyone was really nice to us, even when Ian decided to throw a total fit in the middle of dinner (we ultimately had to take him out of the restaurant after he tried to pull the tablecloth off the table and knocked over a glass of water). The wait staff would come over to refill our water glasses and smile at him and try to make him laugh. They were very kind.

A downside to this place could probably be the parking - it could be difficult to park on Newport Avenue ( very busy street) or Brook Street. We had no problem finding parking, but we also arrived early. The other possible difficulty is that we could see how it would fill up quickly. There are only a few tables available. So it's a good idea, on both counts, to arrive early for dinner!

In sum, this seems like a pretty authentic, Hong Kong-style Chinese restaurant, with excellent food and service.

Given that we've now found two great Hong Kong-type restaurants, we are going to focus our search on yummy Szechuan-style food in Quincy! We're taking a break next weekend due to a business trip, but tune in soon for our next sampling.

Yummy Cafe

Week 2 of our Chinese restaurant adventure! We got take-out from Yummy Cafe, located at 669 Hancock Street in North Quincy. This place came recommended to us by a colleague of mine whose parents are from Hong Kong. He described it as a place that serves comfort-type food, Hong Kong style.

Jim ordered Beef Chow Foon (beef with wide noodles) and Pork Dumpling Soup. I ordered spring rolls (vegetarian) and ginger-scallion lo mein. We ordered chicken fried rice for the kids.

The lo mein was a big hit with me, Jim and (unbelievably) Ian!


It was a pretty simple dish, just noodles, spiced with ginger and mixed with scallions. It was light and tasty.

Jim thought the food was very good, but was hoping for something a bit spicier. Annie and Ian gave thumbs down to the fried rice (but Jim thought it was tasty).  The kids give thumbs down to just about all the food we make that isn't pasta, fruit or hot dogs.  But they gave huge points for the fact that this place included chopsticks in the takeout bag!

A couple of other points.  First, it's cash only. Not a big deal, but you have to be ready. Also, diners could probably eat-in there, but it's a small place and the eat-in facilities aren't kid-friendly (no high chairs, no public restroom). It is located on one of Quincy's busiest streets, so parking seems like it could be an issue, except that they state on their menu that they have more parking behind their building.

Their menu is a lot smaller than many Chinese restaurants, and I actually appreciate that. I'm not one of those people who enjoy getting handed the phone book when I'm expecting a menu. But, on the downside, there were very few vegetarian options.

Our verdict? This place had delicious food. We would go back.

Inferior Terrace

The first restaurant we tried as part of our quest was Imperial Terrace, located on Sea Street in Quincy.  Some background first. We have driven by this restaurant nearly every day since we bought our house 12 years ago. Click on the following link to see what the outside looks like, from yelp.com.  Given the lack of windows, etc., we always envisioned that it would be the sort of place where there was cock fighting going on in the back and people would be eating peanuts and throwing the shells on the floor. In a word, it was sketchy. So sketchy, in fact, that some friends of ours termed it "Inferior Palace."

In the interest of dispelling all preconceived notions, we knew that this had to be the first restaurant we tried. So, a week ago Friday, we parked and walked inside. It didn't look like anything we expected.



Jim ordered a spicy pork dish and I ordered Vegetarian Moo Shu (also called Moo Shi at other places we've eaten). We ordered shrimp spring rolls as an appetizer, and chicken fingers for the kids.

The food was very heavy and salty.  I didn't get through much of it before my stomach didn't feel quite right. When the waitress came by to see if we wanted to take home any of the food, the only food we brought home was the chicken that the kids didn't eat! I knew I wasn't going to eat any more of my dish.

The service was pretty good, but unremarkable.

Also, this may sound gringa of me, but usually you're offered chopsticks at Chinese restaurants, and many times the menus are bilingual.  Nothing like that here. These small things and the large number of Buick-type cars in the parking lot let us to believe that this may not be the most authentic of Chinese restaurants in Quincy.

All in all, it wasn't as sketchy as we imagined, but we won't be back. Here are Jim and Ian in front of their cowboy front doors, on the way out:

The Great Chinese Adventure

One of our joint new year's resolutions this year is to find good Chinese food in Quincy. We have lived in Quincy for 15 years and it has a very large Chinese population. However, we have failed at finding any good Chinese restaurants in our hometown.

Here's a list of Chinese restaurants that we have tried in the past that we didn't like very much:

Cathay Pacific in North Quincy
Great Chow, Beale Street, Quincy
Mr. Chan's (technically in Milton, but close enough)
Mandarin King, Washington Street, Quincy (next to Dairy Queen)

This year we will change things. How will we find our next "go-to" Chinese restaurant? The plan is to try a new restaurant every Friday night. Tune in for the results.

Repeat

This is from today:

And this is from 1983:

As much as things change, the important stuff stays the same.

ABC's

I don't think anyone reads this blog anymore. But I saw this meme and it looked like fun, and no one will read this anyway! So here goes:

A - Age: 35

B - Bed size: Full. Wish we had a queen though.

C - Chore you hate: Cleaning the cat's litter box.

D - Dog's name: Never had a dog.

E - Essential start your day item: Toothbrush

F - Favourite colors: blue

G - Gold or Silver: Silver

H - Height: 5'5"

I - Instruments you play(ed): Piano, saxophone, flutophone, kazoo

J - Job title: Immigration lawyer, mom

K - Kid(s): Annie and Ian

L - Living arrangements: House with kids, husband and 2 cats

M - Major weakness: Facebook

N - Nicknames: None

O - Overnight hospital stay: When I had my babies.

P - Pet Peeve: Misplaced apostrophes, commas, and other punctuation.

Q - Quote from a movie: I'm not so good remembering quotes from movies.

R - Right or left handed: Right.

S - Siblings: 1 younger sister.

T - Time you wake up:  Usually between 5:30 and 6:30. 

U- Underwear: Yes!?

V - Vegetable you dislike: Cooked peas

W - Ways you run late: It usually has something to do with kids, often surrounding a diaper change.

X - X-rays you've had: Dental, and my ankle a couple of times when I was a kid.

Y - Yummy food you make: Zucchini bread.

Z - Zoo favorites: Zebras