Pho Ha Plus - Diamond Bar

Every town, city, village, strip mall, hole in the ground in SoCal has pho. There may be more pho than people.

With great amounts of pho comes great responsibility. Pho needs to be philtered, and it's hard to know which side of the sieve Pho Ha Plus would stay.

No complaints about any of the food. The starters are plenty fresh, and the Fresh Rolls have enough good shrimp stuffed inside to go around.

The Egg Rolls are fried in an oil that doesn't taste old, and the shredded carrots and cabbage cast are cooked but not too mushy.

The deep fried Bean Curd is fun, like a sandwich in a bean curd bag, stuffed full of shrimp-fish-cake.

The Pho is pretty textbook. Beefy broth that could be a little more beefy, brisket and steak that could be a little more tender, and soft circles of tendon that could be a little more tendon. A balanced, satisfying, middle-of-the-road kind of pho, hardly memorable but good enough for a craving.

Bun with Chargrilled Pork is probably the better dish. The pork is tender and thin, vermicelli in a softer, almost-gelatinous texture, drizzled with fish sauce.

Not winning any awards, and Pho Ha Plus does seem to lack the plus. But no minuses either, and then there's the food dessert of Diamond Bar... The pho ha can be an ah-ha if you're trying to curb a craving...and you're stuck in Diamond Bar.

Because the Best Meals Are Cooked at My Auntie's Home...

What's the point of a food blog if you can't showcase the best meals you've ever had? One of the best meals I've ever had didn't cost me a thing because apparently my auntie is one of SoCal's best chefs. And if my auntie didn't live way out in Diamond Bar, I'd have to quit blogging because I'd never go out to eat again. I won't bore you with too many details of food you can't have, but my auntie's cooking, though it's far from fine dining, does deserve this spread.

I've had plenty of Shumai in my time but I've never seen these tasty little pockets of stuffed with ground pork and sticky rice.

It's just chicken with boring green beans, right? Wrong! Homemade smoked chicken permeates the garden-fresh green beans for a fantastic flavor. 

We don't do sesame chicken. Americans do sesame chicken. We do spicy chicken wings with...well...I don't know what sauce used, but I do know it's addictive...

She can do smoked and she can do savory. She can do hearty as well. Here's a hearty soup with pork rib and corn.

Fish with sour cabbage stew sounds like so many bad ideas, but not when it's hot and sour...

This is quail or cornish hen. Not sure which one because my Chinese is just that bad. All I know is that it's beautifully braised, so like you should do with everything else on this table, don't ask questions, shut up and eat!