Pho Binh Minh, or Sunrise Noodle House, has been satisfying customers for 16 years now. With grey ventilation pipes snaking overhead and washed-out floor tiles the color of dishwater, this eatery may seem more factory than "foodery." Mirrored and neon beer ads do nothing to improve the decor. But that's okay, as people don’t come for the ambience. Rather, they're looking for a quick, reliable meal, and they'll find it here.
Start with vegetable rolls stuffed with rice vermicelli, fried bean curd, radish, and lettuce ($3). The fillings get rolled up into a sheet of rice noodle as thin as paper but surprisingly sturdy. The rolls have the heft of an uncut roll of sushi and are served with a soy dipping sauce. Pliable and served warm, they are delicious.
Pho, or flat rice noodles in soup, requires you to choose from a mélange of beef parts, including steak, brisket, flank, fatty brisket, tendon, and tripe (the small is $4.15, the large is $5.15). The steak is raw; plunging it into the steaming broth cooks it quickly without sacrificing tenderness. On the other hand, brisket can be like chewing rubber bands. The tendon should be chewy but not longer-than-a-minute chewy, as was sometimes the case here. The broth, a major reason for ordering pho, was full of flavor. Each bowl of pho comes with a plate of raw bean sprouts, mint, and lemon wedges.
Ordering rice plates for the rice and not the stuff that goes with it is sort of like buying a pair of shoes because you like the box it comes in. It's not? Is anyone reading this? The turmeric rice alone merits ordering a rice plate. The rice is "broken" and infused with turmeric, which colors it a deep yellow. Broken rice is a result of the milling process and has a faster cooking time than unbroken rice. The texture is both sticky and dry, with a slight resistance. I ordered mine with a combination of chicken sate, barbecued pork, and a shrimp skewer ($7). The chicken sate was meaty with a hint of heat from red pepper flakes; the peanut sauce was creamy and sweet. The barbecued pork was nicely caramelized. The shrimp skewer sported two rather meager but tasty shrimp.
Thin rice noodle dishes (Bun Thit Nuong) come with pork, chicken, tofu, egg rolls, and combinations thereof. To wake up the noodles, you can mix it with raw cucumbers, carrots, and bean sprouts and splash the whole thing with the sweet vinegary fish sauce that accompanies all of these dishes.
The grilled beef wrapped with onion and the egg roll with rice noodles has a crispy thin egg roll filled with more rice noodle and minced meat. A thin sheet of grilled beef is wrapped around fried onions, sprinkled with scallions, and then chopped into bite-size pieces. Each bite is chewy and redolent of mellowed onions.