A local option to try!

You might have heard about phở before, but have you ever tried it? Well, if you don’t already know, phở, pronounced FUH, is Vietnamese cuisine. It contains broth, noodles, herbs, and meat, and is served as a main course. Vietnamese cuisine contains many other delectable dishes. In the Ellicott City area, the restaurant Viet Pearl is a great place to go and try to start your Asian cuisine journey!  Viet Pearl is an upbeat bar/grill that offers phở, noodles, and seafood. 

When I got to the restaurant, a kind server named Vy, who herself is from Saigon, Vietnam, recommended five different dishes. The first two appetizers were spring rolls and egg rolls. She then recommended the traditional beef eye round phở soup that is highly popular within the restaurant. She specifically explained how she recommends the following dishes for after the phở soup because in Vietnam the soup would come first. She then recommended the combination vermicelli which contained egg rolls, shrimp, chicken, beef, and noodles! She also said the sauteed diced beef was one she enjoyed and wanted me to try. She recommended the freshly made lemonade drink and Vietnamese coffee. 

The spring rolls which contained minced pork, shrimp, egg, vegetables, glass noodles, and other spices were the first thing I tried. The rolls were clear and soft and came with the thick brown peanut dipping sauce which was one of the highlights of my dining experience. The spring rolls paired well with the dipping sauce. The sauce was sweet and savory and brought out the taste of the shrimp in the spring rolls which I very much enjoyed. 

The next thing I tried was the egg rolls, which contained shredded cabbage, pork, shrimp, and so much more. It was really like nothing I had tasted before. The egg rolls on the other hand were a lot crispier and served with light yellow fish sauce which was also very sweet and gave the egg rolls a crispy sweet taste. The next thing to come was the beef phở soup. The soup came with fresh herbs on top with the beef cooking inside the steaming hot soup. I continued to add a generous amount of sauces to the soup which were sriracha and hoisin sauce. The noodles in the soup were extremely soft and full of the flavor from the broth itself. The soup itself was sweet and had a kick of spice. There is an option to add more veggies, but I decided to add no more since the ones in the soup were enough for me. 

The next thing I tried was the combination vermicelli, which was brought with fish oil that gets poured on top. The noodles that were in the dish were extremely soft and complemented the sauce with it. The pork on the noodles tasted so good with the noodles as well! I then tried the sauteed diced beef. I was very surprised when I saw that there was combination fried rice that contained eggs in the dish. When I tried the beef, it reminded me of the dishes from my home country, Nicaragua. It brought me home. It was sweet but also had a tiny kick of spiciness. You can tell it was still warm from the skillet, which I adored. Vietnamese coffee was one of the drinks that were brought. It was very bitter, but good for those who love coffee, as it is very strong. The lemonade on the other hand was super sweet and had a taste of sparkling water in it which was a kick to give to a simple lemonade. 

I would 100% recommend these dishes to everyone! This restaurant is definitely in my top five. Go ahead and visit Viet Pearl in Ellicott City and order these dishes! For a more local option, I recommend phở Dat Thanh in Columbia, which is also extremely good!