Food

Cheap Eats 2011: Pho 75 – Arlington

Diners have come to rely on the menu of Vietnamese soups at these cafeteria-style dining rooms. The steaming, anise-spiked bowls of broth and noodles can be ordered with many combinations of beef cuts, offal, or sausage-like meatballs, and they arrive almost instantly after ordering. Even if you’re squeamish about tripe or tendon, consider ordering them for the richness they lend to the broth–you can eat around them. Chicken-noodle soup is every bit as deep and satisfying as its beefy cousins. Enhance any of the phos with accompanying plates of bean sprouts, basil sprigs, lime wedges, and jalapeños or with a dollop of the Sriracha chili sauce found on the tables. Soups come in small and large, but the small size is satisfying enough for average appetites. And don’t forget that it’s cash only.

Also good: Fresh-squeezed lemonade and lemon soda; Vietnamese coffee.

Open daily for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Ann Limpert
Executive Food Editor/Critic

Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.