Pho means beef noodle soup and that’s the specialty here. The menu is a bit daunting with over a hundred items, but take your time and choose something that intrigues you.
Vietnamese soups are full meals and you’ll have a hard time eating everything. No need to bother with appetizers, but try the red bean “pudding” for dessert.

Like most of the other Vietnamese restaurants in the area, Pho Vinh’s menu is larger than you would think it would need to be. With over 180 items, the menu is a lot to take in and, well, digest. I knew I wanted soup when I visited, so instead of wading through the various pho, metaphorically speaking, I zeroed in on the section of the menu labeled “House Soups Specials.” How can you go wrong there?I selected the bun mang vit, or what is more commonly referred to as ol’ number 72. It was a beef-based soup with slender rice vermicelli noodles, the meat of a duck leg (sans bones) and miniature planks of bamboo shoots. Accompanying the soup were stacks of crunchy bean sprouts and fresh, green basil, plus some slices of jalapeno for heat and limes for tartness. A good, filling soup — especially nice on cold days.
The decor is pleasant, bright and tidy. Service was friendly and welcoming.

The first thing you’re likely to notice about Saigon Flavors is that it isn’t in downtown Orlando or anywhere near the intersection of Mills Avenue and Colonial Drive. That neighborhood, which locals have unofficially called Little Saigon for years, has the city’s greatest concentration of Vietnamese restaurants. Saigon Flavors is also more modernistic in style and decor. But the food is firmly set in tradition. Pho, the beef noodle soup with a variety of ingredients, is quite good. For an unusual appetizer, have the “golden pancake,” which is more like an omelet with bean sprouts.

What impressed me most about the food I had here was how vibrant and colorful it looked. Even the pho, which is many restaurants can look like day old dishwater, was vivid and fresh looking. Part of the reason may be that my dining companion had chosen the vegetable and tofu pho, so the broth was a clear vegetable broth. But the carrots and greens and even the white cubes of tofu were so enticing.

Let me just put this right out there at the beginning: Viet-Nomz might just be serving the best Vietnamese food in the area. Those of you who know me know that I don’t make such statements lightly.

I put off visiting this small, fast-casual restaurant for a long time because too many other businesses in this spot opened and closed too quickly. I didn’t hold up much hope for another newcomer, especially one with such a cutesy name. But after six months of seeing more cars in front than I ever did for any of the other restaurants that have occupied the University Boulevard space, I decided to pull over and try it myself.

he menu is less extensive than many of those you’d find in the neighboring restaurants, some of which have over a hundred options. But like those other restaurants, several of the items on the menu are variations of the same dish. For example, of the seven dishes listed under the heading “House Specials,” five were essentially the same dish with a different lead protein. All had fried shrimp, deep-fried  shrimp-and-pork cake wrapped in bean curd skin, shredded pork skin, and grilled shrimp. You could get that with grilled pork, chicken, grilled beef, grilled “ribs of the beef,” or grilled rib. I chose the latter, which turned out to be a pork chop. And a good one at that, slightly charred but moist inside. The shrimp-and-pork cake was especially tasty with the fried bean curd skin. And the platter was filled out with a large mound of white fluffy rice plus some lettuce, sculptured carrot slices, cucumber and a ring of jalapeno. There was also a dish of sweet and sour vinaigrette to pour over the rice. It was all very good and very filling, even if the two grilled shrimp were, well, shrimpy.

Z Aisan Vietnamese Kitchen is one of the latest to join the Mills 50 lineup of eateries in what is historically the center of the city’s Asian community. It offers a more modernistic approach to the Vietnamese dining experience while still paying homage to the traditional recipes.