Photolog 2018: Day 235 of 365

Went to Pho 88 at Don Mills for dinner tonight with my friends Tuta and Maegan. First off, this particular location of Pho 88 is by far the biggest and most aesthetically pleasing pho restaurants I have ever seen. It's clean, sleek, and contemporary with dark wood benches, hanging lightbulbs, and a massive industrial metal wine rack displayed across the back wall. We shared a mango salad and the spring roll platter (which includes two deep-fried spring rolls, two shrimp rolls, and two deep-fried shrimp rolls), and I got the rare beef and flank satay pho. While the noodles and the meat were standard, the satay broth here was not good. First off, it didn't taste like satay. Secondly, it was completely watered down. Thirdly, it's more expensive than the regular broth. At least the mango salad and rolls were decent. Not particularly noteworthy, but our cravings were satisfied.

But the reason I will not return here is because the service was beyond poor. We were barely at our table for a minute before the server asked if we were ready to order, then she forgot to give us bean sprouts/lime/mint (which most places set at the table before the pho even gets there), then she forgot to get us our drinks, and each time we had to get some service, she wasn't paying attention to the patrons (which is ridiculous as there weren't many of us to begin with and she was just wiping down drink glasses). Then she totally disappeared and we had to get the other guy to get our bill, and when we asked to split it, he rolled his eyes and made an exasperated "ugh" sound. Then it took him another ten minutes to get the bills to us, then another five minutes to bring the card machine, and he just left the machine at the table. As in, he didn't even bother inputting the costs of our bills so we could pay. He just walked away and we had to work the machine to charge ourselves. Look, I get surly Asian servers. I don't go to Asian restaurants for the service. But even this was a little ridiculous. He came back ten minutes later and was like, "You did it?" Suffice it to say, he didn't even deserve the 10% tip we left. It might as well have been self-serve.