Happy New Year! It’s a new year and along with the new year comes new opportunities and new adventures. How perfect is it that for my first dinner out for 2015, I tried a place that Yelp has listed as “hot and new.” This place is Pho Consomme located in Torrance, CA. There are also two other locations in California, one in Gardena and the other in Rowland Heights. When I saw this place, newly opened, my adventurous foodie side got excited and I decided to try it out. 😉 New year, new foods to try!

Their menu is pretty extensive with the biggest focus on the pho, noodle soups. For my first time here though, I went outside the box and tried something different. My adventurous foodie side kicked in and for this particular dinner, I chose to split with friends one appetizer and one rice dish.

The appetizer of choice for the night was the Bi Cuon. Bi means “pork skin” while cuon refers to a “roll”. At Pho Consomme, instead of pork skin, they used shredded pork. The roll was filled with various vegetables such as cilantro, basil and mint. There was also vermicelli noodles inside. It came with two dipping sauces, one peanut sauce and one spicy red pepper sauce. This appetizer was a meal in itself. Stuffed and oozing with the all the ingredients, it was hard not to be full after eating this appetizer. I loved the freshness of the dish. The crisp vegetables inside were a nice touch. The dipping sauces gave a special extra flavor kick. The peanut sauce a slight sweet flavor while the spicy red pepper sauce was fiery and burning.

The main entree of the night was Com Chien Consomme. It is the house special fried rice and had shrimp, chicken and beef. This dish was huge. There was plenty of flavorful, well seasoned fried rice and a good mix of shrimp, chicken and beef. It was my first time trying fried rice at a Vietnamese restaurant (once again, adventurous kitty was channeling in) and I did enjoy it. There’s a distinct flavor due to the mix of different ingredients. The beef and chicken were a little overcooked but overall It was a good and hearty rice dish.

Overall, it was good first dinner out for 2015. I got to try a new place and eat something that is not commonly ordered at a pho place. A new year, a new restaurant and new foods = new smiles.

For more smiles, please se my recent, Yelp review on Pho Consomme.