At Pho Midway You Don’t Need to Yell ‘Ding Dong’ to Get Some Good Soup

Luckily for those of us in North Texas, there are a plethora of choices when one gets a hankering for a delicious bowl of Vietnamese soup, and Pho Midway, in Far North Dallas, is a worthy addition to the pho scene.

The family-owned business is run by a mother-father-son trio, whose website blurb promises “… a dining room with modern décor and cozy ambiance, and at the same time provide very traditional approaches to Vietnamese cooking.” It lives in a location that has housed at least three other restaurants during the past 15 or so years, but Pho Midway has outlived them all, powering through the pandemic months and surviving to provide the neighborhood a great Vietnamese option.

Our most current lunch outing started off with some pork egg rolls, which come three to an order with a  sweet-sour dipping sauce. They’re not bad, but a bit pricey at almost $5, but what are you going to do?

Next, we got a bowl of pho and a stir-fried noodle dish, the shaking beef egg noodle. As usual, the pho can be ordered with many different proteins such as brisket, flank steak, tendon, meatballs, chicken, shrimp, etc., and it comes with a side plate of limes, bean sprouts, jalapenos, and mint leaves. No surprises here, but still welcome. We went with brisket, and after adding a healthy dollop of rooster sauce along with the accoutrements, started in.

The beef was thinly sliced with just the right amount of lean/fat ratio that one looks for in brisket. It wasn’t grey as is often the case, and was not overcooked. The broth was flavorful and probably could have stood alone without the added hot sauce, but we’re creatures of habit.

The shaking beef has stir-fried vermicelli noodles in soy along with chunks of tender beef, sliced onions, and red and green bell pepper, all garnished with cucumber and shredded carrot. The noodles were not overcooked and thus did not congeal into a single unappetizing mass as occasionally occurs with such dishes. The bell peppers were plentiful, perhaps to an extreme, and in the end were shared with the pho eater, who rarely turns down castoffs from a dining partner’s plate.

The pho was almost $12, the beef noodle about $15, and as stated the egg rolls $5, so this was a bit on the high side for a spur-of-the-moment lunch at almost $40. Other menu choices included appetizers of dumplings or spring rolls, vermicelli noodle soup bowls, hu tieu soup, stew, banh mi sandwiches and banh hoi, as well as mini beignets for dessert and several made-to-order coffees and teas.

This is a decent Vietnamese spot run by friendly and happy people and worth a visit. And as the sign at the counter says, all you have to do is yell “ding dong,” and all your needs should be met.

17610 Midway Road, No. 140, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m., 4:30 p.m. – 9 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, & Friday; 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. Tuesday; 11 a.m. – 9 p.m. Saturday & Sunday