Dinner at Pho Kingdom in Fort Myers (Closed)

Stevan Stanisic
Feb 7, 2018
3 min read

Pho Kingdom

is a restaurant in Fort Myers, FL serving Vietnamese cuisine. At present, they have been open less than a month and are in the space formerly housing Ruben’s Smokehouse. I love a good bowl of pho, that delicious Vietnamese soup made from a richly prepared broth and rice noodles at it’s most basic. That being said, my dining companion and I decided to check it out.

The interior of the restaurant is somewhat moderate and simple, reflecting the cuisine here.

Dining area, Pho Kingdom

The menu, at least for now, is minimal. That’s OK I thought, perhaps they do what they do well.

Menu, Pho Kingdom

We opted to try a few things off the menu, the first being the cha gio tom and cha gio ga, fried shrimp and chicken rolls, respectively. Four rolls come to a serving, and for $4, is very reasonable. The owner was really nice and brought to the table two chicken and shrimp rolls so we could try them both. Unfortunately, these were no great shakes. Just run of the mill fried rolls.

I wanted to try the beef rib dish (com suong bo) but they were out. We opted for the com suong heo, or barbecued pork with rice.

Barbecued pork with rice and fish sauce

Upon serving, this dish just seemed like a barbecued pork chop, at first glance unremarkable and I was somewhat disappointed. It was much more according to my dining companion who had traveled extensively in Vietnam. The pork was fairly sweet after it’s condensed milk and honey marinade. The dish, once explained to me how it works, was very good. The pork, cut into bite size piece is topped onto rice and seasoned with the fish sauce-based condiment provided. To complete this meal, a small serving of the restaurant’s chicken pho was served alongside. It was delicious and a wonderful compliment to this main.

We finished with the pho dac biet, a pho with brisket, meat ball and beef. This was a monstrous portion of pho and if I had to guess was about 25 oz.

Pho dac biet

The condiments served were some of the usual pho suspects and included basil, bean sprouts, culantro and hoisin sauce. This beef pho was really heavy on the star anise/five spice powder so if you like this flavor this bowl o’ pho is for you.

Having no more room for food we asked for the check. As of this writing, the restaurant is giving a 20% discount as a “carrot” to come and try their food. With our discount the above bowl of pho was around $11.00. I don’t think you can find anything like this in the area for this price. For lunch, two people would have a fairly good serving of pho for not much more than $5.00.

The food, from what was sampled at PK was ok to very good. I thought the pho hands down was the best of what we ate here. The prices, at least for now, cannot be beat and readers may want to take advantage of this promotion. If you have a “yen” for Vietnamese food, especially pho, PK may be for you.