I suppose you can find a few restaurants open all night in midtown Atlanta, but who would have expected 24/7 Vietnamese in Norcross? I Luv Pho--complete with a heart in the title--is located in Merchants Square at the corner of Jimmy Carter and Britt Road.
Despite the kitschy name, this is authentic Vietnamese cuisine. When you walk in, you’re greeted by a gold, larger than life, laughing Buddha. Just 2 days into 2012, the restaurant is decorated in a hodgepodge of Christmas, New Years, and the upcoming Chinese New Year. It was on the late edge of lunch and tables filled will empty bowls were being cleared. There was only one other person of European decent this day, a young man who seemed to be trying to impress his attractive Asian girlfriend and looking out of his depth.
With temperatures finally dropping, I’d come for pho, the noodle soup this restaurant is named after. I Luv Pho has all the things I expect in a full service Vietnamese restaurant: appetizers, soup, rice and noodle dishes, even bahn mi (the French inspired salad sandwich). But I spied something I seldom see, crispy rice cooked in a clay with your choice of meats and vegetables. I chose Com Tay Cam Dac Biet (crispy rice, beef, seafood, chicken and veggies). At $8.45, it’s one of the most expensive items on the menu and enough for 2 lunches.
The dish was gorgeous. In addition to beef and chicken there was shrimp and tender calamari rings. The menu description promised imitation crab and I was thrilled to find none. As always in this cuisine there were almost too many vegetables to list. I found cooked onion, mushroom, cabbage, bamboo shoots, baby corn and pineapple, plus fresh carrot, and broccoli atop leaf lettuce. The rice was a deep yellow with some satisfying crunchy bits. The surprise was the quality of the canh, a clear beef broth topped with green onion and fragrant with cinnamon and star anise.
As I’ve said before, Vietnamese cuisine is the healthiest, most inexpensive food available in the ATL. If the economy is hitting your wallet hard, consider giving it a try.
4650 Jimmy Carter Blvd #133b
Norcross, GA 30093
(678) 894-0532
Hours
Open 24/7
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