Pho Kim Long - Best Bun Rieu Oc in the Bay Area

Chuckle at the name, but their pho is nothing to laugh about. If someone hadn’t clued us in to PKL, we may well have never thought to check it out, because admittedly it doesn’t look like all that much. A little sneeze-and-you’ll-miss-it storefront. But they sure serve a mean bowl of delicious pho.

As I've observed before, Vietnamese cuisine may be some of the friendliest food out there for people looking to eat light. Especially when it comes to soups. A big bowl of pho, for instance, with all the veggie mix-ins and the right-size portions of meat and noodles, can keep me satisfied for hours. And when you get tired of all the variations on pho, there's a whole galaxy of other soups to try.

Instead of having pho today, I decided to try a different item on the menu called Bun Rieu Oc (that’s bun noodle soup with crab and snails; pictured above), which according to a Vietnamese-American friend, is "da bomb" in the bay area. It was packed with bun noodles, chunks of fried bean curd and ground crab patty, wedges of tomato, and huge de-shelled snails in a tomato broth. At other places I’ve had this soup, the snails had not only been puny but also rubber-eraser-like. Here, they’re terrifically tender, with just the slightest pleasant little crunch. The accompanying side-plate of veggie mix-ins, plus a little saucer of deliciously savory dipping sauce that goes especially well with the snails, made the meal both satisfying and filling.