Baltimore Pho lights up Hollins Market area

By Elizabeth Large | Sun Restaurant Critic

April 20, 2008

In the evening, Baltimore Pho is a bright oasis in the deserted Hollins Market area. During the day, the market may be bustling; but at night the neighborhood is quiet, and you notice the empty sidewalks and boarded-up storefronts. (No parking worries here.) Then suddenly you spot the colorful facade of the city's newest Vietnamese restaurant.

The owners took their time to renovate what was Mencken's Cultured Pearl. They did a good job of it, creating a serene space in red, black and white. A bar runs along one side, a long dining room on the other. The contemporary decor has Asian notes but is still grounded in Baltimore (the exposed brick wall, the tin ceiling).

Baltimore Pho is more upscale than other Vietnamese restaurants in this area, so it's a good choice for an occasion; but you won't feel out of place if you decide to wear jeans. Although the front-of-the-house staff isn't Vietnamese, the chefs - Kim-Dung Robinson and Larry Huynh - are. As its name suggests, Baltimore Pho seems to be a collaboration between two cultures.

The most negative thing I can say about this restaurant is that the staff should let the place, and the food, speak for itself. They have a good thing here; they, and the menu, don't have to sell it so hard. (Surely not everything is "the best you've ever had.") But if you can overlook that, you'll end up having a fine time at Baltimore Pho.

The food is fine, beautifully presented on triangular white plates, and quite reasonably priced. Let's start with the pho, which is pronounced something like "fuh?" (rising intonation, if you want to sound authentic). It's the traditional Vietnamese rice noodle soup. The kitchen has created a seafood version especially for Baltimore, or so the menu says, with a delicately flavorful broth, a meaty crab claw, a mussel on the half shell, a shrimp, a scallop and a square of perch.

I liked it so much I almost didn't add any of the condiments: the fresh herbs (Thai basil and culantro, a long leaf that tastes like cilantro), bean sprouts, fiery sriracha and hoisin sauces, and lime. The pho isn't a huge serving; if you aren't having the quantity of other food we were, one option is to pay extra and get more seafood.

We started with elegant little Vietnamese summer rolls, the rice paper wrapping bursting with shrimp, mint and other good things. These came with hoisin sauce and ground peanuts; but the waiter brought us various dipping sauces, and after a while we weren't too careful about what we ate with what. There was sweet chili sauce, the fish sauce that came with fried prawn crackers, and sriracha sauce if you needed more heat.

The restaurant's fried calamari was unexpectedly one of the highlights of our meal. With its fat pieces of squid garnished with slivers of fried onion and delicate rings of hot pepper, it was also more beautiful than the bar food version. Baltimore Pho's fish cakes (made with chopped perch) turned out to be intensely flavorful without being too fishy for American tastes.

Most of the dishes fall somewhere between small plates and entrees, and are priced accordingly. They are meant for sharing, except for the pho itself. The calamari is actually billed as an entree, but worked well as a first course.

The must-have dish after the pho is the whole fried flounder, which the chef scores so you can grab a piece with your chopsticks and leave (most of) the bones behind. The fish was moist and fragile within its gold crust. Our other dishes didn't quite reach those exalted heights, but I would happily order the pork caramelized in a clay pot again.

The beef in garlic sauce was supposedly tenderloin, our waiter told us. I wish he hadn't, because its chewy texture, which wouldn't have bothered me otherwise, then seemed wrong. The flavor was exceptional.

Desserts were very simple: a moist banana bread pudding made with red bananas (my favorite), fried ice cream, and a chef's special that this evening was creme brulee. Although the creme brulee tasted fine, the custard had separated in an odd way.

Another after-dinner option is Vietnamese coffee, strong and sweet. The coffee is poured over a layer of sweetened condensed milk; you can stir them together or leave the sweet milk for the end.

Finally, I should mention Baltimore Pho's odd drinks list. Along with numerous sakes and draft and bottled beer, there are wines by the glass, chosen to go with Vietnamese food. What's strange is that you can order any of the wines by the bottle; they just aren't listed as such.

The bottom line is that the Hollins Market area is lucky to have this restaurant in its neighborhood.

Sure, the place has a few flaws; but if you consider what you get for the price, it's a hands-down winner. If any restaurant can have the success that Mencken's Cultured Pearl once did in this area, I imagine it will be Baltimore Pho.

elizabeth.large@baltsun.com