Some personal friends may have heard my rant about food in Inala lately, what used to be a mecca of top tier value has become somewhat of a hit and miss with all restaurants putting up their prices and some restaurants drastically lowering their portion sizes. My most recent visit to the iconic Tan Thanh lead to considerable disappointment as a result of this. As a result of this, I was keen to hunt down a place that would still offer portion sizes reminiscent of the early 2000s even if it may have 2024 prices. My hunt lead me to Ca Phe Nam in West End, where we met a couple of friends for brunch.
The shopfront was small but we were there early so getting a seat was not difficult. Their menu covered all the Vietnamese essentials pho, rice and banh mi, but we were only there for one thing, their legendary giant pho.
Sprouts came quickly after we put in our order. Given we ordered three bowls of pho, this was a fairly small portion, however none of us at the table were fans of sprouts so they remained largely untouched.
One of our friends opted for the crispy pork vermicelli salad. The bowl was huge and the salad was also humungous. Compared to the usual you might get in the CBD, it was roughly twice the size. She said it was delicious and based on visual inspection alone, there was a generous amount of salad and crispy roast pork. There was so much that it went unfinished and she had to take half away.
Dr L tried their signature bun bo hue. I sampled some and enjoyed the firmer round rice noodles, the hot spicy soup was especially warming in the cold weather. There was also a very decent amount of beef balls and brisket. The only improvements I would suggest would be to have a more flavoursome soup which was definitely on the lighter side.
I had the rare beef pho which was again huge. There were more noodles than my usual order with the addition of extra noodles. Even better, there was more than enough beef to accompany the noodles, served perfectly rare, it definitely filled me up and I couldn't complain. Again, the only element for improvement is the soup which could be stronger. Having said that, given the quality and quantity of food not far from home, that alone is reason to return.
Price Range: $15 - $25pp
Taste: 8/10
Value: 9/10
Service: 7/10
Environment: 6/10
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