One of my workmates introduced me to cheap pho at Savoury Kitchen in Westfield Woden. Located in the corner of the food court, Savoury Kitchen offers Vietnamese food such as rice paper rolls, pho and other noodle dishes, as well as your typical Western favourite Asian foods – honey chicken, salt and pepper squid and more.
There are several types of pho but I love beef pho ($10.80).
This includes thin slices of beef and beef balls with thin rice noodles, sliced onion, basil and coriander. I was impressed that the the entire bowl is chock full of noodles and meat. It’s not just meat and noodles floating on top of a bowl of soup. The broth is very light but I’m always nice and full after a bowl of this. Wait time for pho is usually 5 minutes to cook all the items in the pho.
Savoury Kitchen has recently renewed its menu and expanded its range of noodles and soups. On another occasion, I had a craving for BBQ pork, wontons and noodles but couldn’t see this combination on the menu. There’s a BBQ pork and wonton soup, and a BBQ pork in noodle soup, but I couldn’t see anything with all three. I asked the staff whether it could be done and was happy to hear that it wasn’t a problem. This was $11.80 and I only had to wait 5 minutes in the peak lunch time rush for my take away.
I was happy with the amount of food in the bowl (though would’ve liked a bit more pork). You can’t tell in the photo but there were so many noodles! There were about 4 wontons in the bowl, but these aren’t your ordinary small wontons. These are super fat and stuffed full with mushrooms, prawns and pork mince. Tasty too.
Another time, I tried the beef brisket noodle soup ($11.80) and was surprised to find some delicious looking chunks of beef brisket. How good does it look? Happy to report that the beef was soft and tender and coated in a delicious sauce. There were quite a few chunks of fat attached to the brisket but I could live with chewing around it. There was a sufficient portion of noodles underneath coated in the same yummy sauce the brisket is smothered in. As I ordered this as a take away meal, a separate container filled with broth was provided.
Staff behind the counter are overly eager to take your order but are friendly and willing to customise a dish. Yes it’s food court food but I’ve been back a few times now – seems like a somewhat healthy Asian take away meal that’s not too pricey.
Foodgasm 7/10