Pho Ninty Nine - Markham

I was meeting a buddy who was driving in from Oshawa and I was coming from Vaughan so we decided to meet in the middle at Pho 99 where neither of us had been to. We've both eaten pho at many different Vietnamese restaurants in York Region but this one was by far the worst. Service was not too friendly but from my experience you can't expect much when going to an Asian restaurant. The pho broth had MSG and didn't even taste good. The bean sprouts and basil were fresh though. The spring rolls were just OK. We also ordered the com rice dish with grilled pork and grilled chicken. Both of them were tough and rubbery like an old baseball glove. I'm never coming back here again!

We ordered pho and dry rice middles and we love their food. Their prices are good too, small bowl of pho $7.5, medium $8.5 and large is $9.5. I ordered the large and have at least 15% more beef and noodles than the other Pho places of same size pho.

Everybody had eaten dinner but needing something to warm up due to increasing temperature in the weather, so everybody decided to go for Vietnamese soup and this is the closest. Everybody got a big bowl of soup and each had different order. Some hot, some with different taste of Asia , I ordered a normal rice noodle with beef brisket. Yummy and kept my body warm . Everybody were satisfied with their order and trying hard to use their chopsticks to get the noodles, in the end, some asked for fork in defeat of getting their noodles to their mouth , to everybody/s laughter. All in all it was a satisfying food journey.

My fiancée and I love our pho noodles and this was in our neighborhood. I was told that this place is worth checking out and so we did. I was disappointed. Maybe it was just our luck that we didn't get the right meal or the cook was in a bad mood I don't know. But I felt the soup base was a bit too watery and the noodles was not chewy. I remember thinking to myself that wow this taste like those instant pho noodles I can get at the supermarket. I would not come back. There are plenty of better pho places to try out.

The location is beside Markville Mall and there is free parking in front or in the back. I’ve been here a few times and love their pho chicken soup. It has nice pieces of white breast meat and the broth has great flavour. I also order the lemon grass chicken with rice sometimes. The chicken is marinated and grilled to perfection. Again it was a nice piece not dark meat or a bunch of fat and gristle you find at other places. The décor is nothing special or fancy in any way but the price is good and so is the quality. The only negative thing is that they really need to clean the walls and a coat of paint would help too.