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Pho & Grill exemplifies everything appealing about Vietnamese cuisine. The space is lean and trim, bright, clean, simple and full of delicious aromas — just like the food.

The Vietnamese plate is generally neither fussy nor cluttered, accentuating the clean lines of freshly slivered chilies, chopped herbs, vermicelli cut carrots, fine noodles, crisp wrappers and sauces that range from the transparent yet potent to the dark and rich. The short menu at Pho & Grill features dishes that are spare, yet by no means meager, in their portions.

Goi Cuon, summer rolls also known as salad rolls, feature crisp lettuce, vermicelli rice noodles grilled shrimp and fresh sweet herbs, all tightly rolled up in gossamer rice paper wrappers and served with a thick dip of ground peanuts and densely bittersweet fermented soy hosin sauce.

Cha GiÚ are crisply fried spring rolls, in this case cigar shaped, stuffed with a generous amount of pork and noodles. The rolls have ruffled edges, a design feature intended to convey the maximum amount of translucent briny fish sauce. The sauce's slightly orange iridescence hints at the presence of mildly piquant minced chilies.

The specialty roll of the house, Nem Nuong Ninh Hoa, features the best of both worlds. Morsels of grilled pork and a pencil-thin crispy spring roll are bundled up with the other familiar summer roll ingredients, adding a delightful crunch and protein to the leafy herbs, lettuces and noodles enclosed in a rice wrapper. This roll of many textures and flavors is served with a rich warm sauce flavored with garlic and chilies.

Pho is that wonderfully ubiquitous steaming bowl of rich aromatic broth that saturates a pile of glassy noodles. A large portion of fresh Thai basil and cilantro as well as a few wedges of lime typically accompany it. One version of pho, T·i BÚ ViÍn, is topped with thin slices of beef eye round and meatballs, slivers of onion and spring onion as well as bean sprouts, Thai basil, chopped jalapeños and a crisp sesame rice cracker. In addition to several other renditions of beef pho, each with its own assortment of beef cuts, a spectacular fish flavored broth with house made shrimp balls and shrimp cakes is a specialty of the house. Each comes with its own special garnish of chopped bean sprouts tossed with herbs and chilies and served with a sesame rice cracker.

Simple yet masterfully grilled meats and shrimp are on the menu. Thit heo nuong sa, grilled lemongrass pork, consists of super thin slices of mildly seasoned lean pork gently charred on the grill at the order and served with a salad of precisely sliced cucumbers. Sesame beef is similarly sliced, mildly seasoned and freshly grilled, and all grilled dishes come with either rice or noodles. Sambal, a Southeast Asian hot chili sauce, is provided in a squeeze bottle at the table for extra heft as desired.

The formula for success at Pho & Grill is a short and simple menu of tastefully executed and presented dishes that feature fresh ingredients and flavors. The dining room is populated by a clientele of all stripes, proving that competently made food of any nationality will draw a diverse crowd in search of quality and value. Lovely photos of Vietnamese ingredients and dishes adorn the walls as well as the website.

Pho & Grill
18310 Contour Road, Gaithersburg
301-740-7728
Hours: Open daily 11 a.m.-9 p.m.
Style of cuisine: Vietnamese
Appetizers: $3.50
Grilled items: $8.50-$9.50
Pho: $6.50-$8.50
Credit cards: All major cards
Take out
Accessible
www.pho-grill.com