Tank Noodle

One thing we really miss in New York is good pho.  Chicago has a really strong Vietnamese restaurant community, and we just haven't found anything in New York that is quite the same (although we do keep looking).  We used to go for pho fairly often when we lived in Chicago, but now, not so much.

The main cluster of Vietnamese restaurants in Chicago is centered around Argyle Street in the Uptown neighborhood.  Our favorite pho place there is Tank Noodle (in Vietnamese, Pho Xe Tang). When we started going to Tank 8 or 9 years ago (hard to remember back that far!) it was a tiny smoke-filled (many years pre-ban) storefront much further east on Argyle Street. Now Tank occupies prime real estate on the corner of Argyle and North Broadway, very close to the Red Line stop.

Tank was our first stop after arriving at O'Hare.  We started out with 2 of our favorite Vietnamese appetizers.  The first to arrive was gỏi cuốn ($4.50), 2 fresh spring rolls (also called summer rolls on other restaurant menus).  Tank's version contains pork, shrimp, noodles, lettuce, mint, chives and bean sprouts.
 

The sauce is, on taste, a combination of hoisin sauce and fish sauce with crushed peanuts and shaved, pickled radish and carrot as a garnish. The hoisin sauce adds a sweet and salty base while the fish sauce adds a taste that really can't be described. The garnish of peanuts and pickled vegetables add texture and some additional taste (mostly sour).
 

We really like summer rolls because of the fresh, clean flavors and how healthy they are.  The rolls from Tank were really good, probably among the best we've had.  The rice wrapper was soft without being too sticky or too dry.  The shrimp were plump.  All the vegetables gave the roll a nice crunch on the inside.  We were really happy with these.
 

We also got chả giò tôm ($4.50), 3 fried shrimp egg rolls, which contained shrimp, carrots, taro and wood ear mushrooms.  We didn't really have a preference between the fried pork and fried shrimp egg rolls, but one appetizer came with 2 rolls and one came with 3 rolls.  There were 3 of us (we were with A's brother who generously picked us up from the airport) so we picked the shrimp egg rolls to make it easier to share.  On the side was the usual fish sauce-based dipping sauce (nước chấm) that also contained carrots and radishes.

The outside of the rolls was perfectly crispy and the inside packed a lot of flavor into each small bite.  At Vietnamese restaurants, M is used to getting lots of lettuce with spring rolls to wrap them in to eat, and has really grown to like that.  There was one giant piece of lettuce with these spring rolls but definitely not enough to wrap all 3.  The extra crunch and freshness of the lettuce around the spring rolls was the perfect finish for the rolls.
 

We have gone out for pho occasionally in New York, but it's just not the same as Tank.  We haven't found another place anywhere that has matched Tank so far.  Even the plate of bean sprouts, jalapenos, limes and basil that Tank gives is enormous compared to the paltry vegetable accompaniment plates that you get in New York (at least at the places we have tried).

It's probably obvious that we have very good memories of Tank, and therefore, we had very high expectations for our return visit, especially for the broth that differentiates them from the pack.  We are very happy to write that Tank met all of our very high expectations and is still just as good as it was over seven years ago.

A got the namesake phở xe tăng (pho with beef and flank) ($9.95).  This was the beef noodle soup combination with sliced beef, well done brisket, well done flank, soft tendon, bible tripe, and meat ball.
 

This is what A had been dreaming of for a very long time. The meat is good quality like most places in NYC, but what really sets Tank apart from every other pho restaurant we've ever tried is the broth. It's exceptionally rich and very comforting. The aroma of all-spice hit you as soon as the bowl is placed in front of you. Countless other spices and herbs float through the air after that initial hit as well. The onions and scallions swimming in the broth add their own flavor and aroma to the soup.

As is customary for A when he has a bowl of pho, he first tastes the broth before adding anything to the soup itself. From there he adds a squeeze of lime wedge, some sprouts, a couple dashes of fish sauce, a circular array of basil leaves, a circular pattern of sriracha sauce, and a cross-hatch design of hoisin sauce. He's not sure why he makes it such an artful display, but he's a creature of habit. He did not, however, take a picture of his bowl as he was hungry and started devouring his tasty meal.

The only criticism A has for this bowl is that he only received one small quarter of meatball. It is common for these "all inclusive" bowls of pho to skimp out on meatballs, but he had never had so few.

M got the phở gà ($7.95), which was beef noodle soup with chicken.  Unlike some other places that use chicken broth for chicken pho, Tank uses the same rich and complex beef broth as the other soups. 

M doesn't put as much stuff into her pho as A does.  She only usually adds bean sprouts and basil.
 

The chicken pho at Tank is much, much better than chicken pho elsewhere, and not just because of the broth (although that is definitely better).  They use good cuts of white meat chicken at Tank.  The chicken this time wasn't as tender as M remembered (the first time she had this pho at Tank the chicken was so soft it almost melted in her mouth), but it was still good.  Other places have grilled chicken (with char marks!) or mediocre cuts of chicken with lots of fat, and the pho at Tank is just so much better.

We are so sad that our visit to Tank Noodle was the last one for awhile.  We are desperately in need of good pho for the coming winter, so any recommendations for the best pho in New York City are gladly accepted and welcomed.  We will have to do some pho tastings!