It’s Super Bowl week.
So naturally I grabbed a co-worker who covers sports for The Herald and headed to Super Bowl Pho in north Everett. It only seemed natural.
Super Bowl Pho opened about a year ago in the building that Alligator Soul and Petosa’s used to inhabit along Broadway. It’s kind of a strange concept: Vietnamese sports bar.
I like strange, Vietnamese food and sports bars, so nobody had to twist my arm about doing a dining review on Super Bowl Pho.
We headed over after work on Monday evening. Keeping with its sports-themed name, the restaurant greets you with a myriad of Seahawks and Mariners logos on the outside and inside walls. A faux fire crackles underneath a large blue “12” on a wall in the entry and a huge Seahawks logo towers over the back stairs.
I snapped a picture of the large Seahawks logo and a server came up to me and explained that the owner painted it. Nice touch.
Because it was a Monday, the main dining room, which is large with close to 10 booths and a number of tables, was fairly empty. The bar, meanwhile, was full. We took a table in the bar area, which consists of five to six four-person tables and a full bar that seats close to a dozen. A number of medium-sized flatscreens glowed from the edges.
After a short wait, the bartender handed us a few menus and asked us our poison. Prompted, she rattled off the 15 beers on tap fairly easily — though she did refer to Samuel Adams as “Samuel Jackson,” which is completely awesome. We settled on an IPA and a hefeweizen.
The bar was pretty lively and the pop of billiards balls could be heard in the next room — Super Bowl Pho has a pool table and a full stage — but it was quiet enough to easily gab about sports. We focused mostly on the Seahawks upcoming victory over the Patriots in the Super Bowl.
The bar menu has two sides: one focused on Asian fare and another on American pub grub. Prices on both menus ranged from $3.95 to $7.95. We ordered the spring rolls and the deep fried fish balls from the Asian-theme bar menu and cheese sticks from the pub grub side.
It’s a little strange, but just flipping over the menu you can choose from options that include egg rolls, grilled prawn skewers, grilled mussels, chili fries and wings. Your stomach may need another soothing ale to process all that madness.
The bar menu items were OK. The spring rolls weren’t as … uh, fresh as I’m accustomed to and the cheese sticks were pretty standard. The fish balls — properly inflated, we agreed — were really good once you got over the unusual texture. The sweet chili sauce that came with them was good.
The dinner menu was full of the pho favorites, vermicelli noodle dishes and five fried rice and fried noodles dishes. Prices were in the $10 range for most of the entrees.
I usually go pho when I can, but I decided to try one of the vermicelli noodle dishes. I chose the pork and egg rolls dish over the other choices that ranged from chicken, prawns and short ribs. My dining partner gravitated toward the fried rice dish with chicken under the Chef’s Special page.
If the bar menu items were so-so, the entrees were great. My dish was packed with pork and egg rolls and the noodles were cooked to perfection. There was also plenty of fresh carrots, lettuce, bean sprouts and cucumbers to round out the dish. I doused it in sweet fish sauce and dove in.
My co-worker’s fried rice dish looked great as well. The chicken was tender and the rice was nice and sticky. The veggies were plentiful as well.
Super Bowl Pho has a full bar and plenty of choices from Vietnamese coffee and sweet soy milk. But we both enjoyed another beer with our meal.
Hey, we don’t have a game to play Sunday.
Super Bowl Pho
3121 Broadway, Everett; 425-789-1100; superbowlphoeverett.com
Hours: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday; 11 a.m. to midnight Thursday through Saturday.
Alcohol: Full bar, beer and wine specials
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