Phuong Long

Phuong Long
306 N. Cleveland
335-2687

Last week, I finally took the monkeys (Satchel, 13, and Jiro, 11) to Phuong Long on Cleveland. They had been for dinner with Warren several weeks before and I had recently gone for lunch, but we'd never been together. It was a good sign that neither of them complained when I disclosed the location of our meal.



I don't think people realize how large this restaurant is, but it is huge! I love the murals,



We arrived around 5:45pm on a Wednesday and almost had it all to ourselves. It was quite full the day I had lunch. Speaking of, what impressed me at lunch was the shrimp with jalapenos, and our server.



I think the food speaks for itself. What I like so much about the server is that, according to the CA's review, he is a Nola transplant, but totally knows the food. He is great about discussing/reviewing ingredients, spice levels, etc. Satchel always has lots of questions because he loves to try new soups, but he doesn't like a lot of vegetables. The server helped him find a good one. And he was funny about saying that some dishes just would be the same if he took out all of the offensive ingredients.

Jiro went with basic chicken fried rice and an order of Spring rolls to share with me. He had seen some on his first visit and had been wanting to try them. I ordered lemongrass beef, though it was hard not to get the shrimp again.

The food came out insanely fast. Jiro really liked the Spring rolls. They were packed with shrimp and a little pork/mystery meat. I had actually tried the vegetarian version at lunch, and they were maybe even better.



The chicken fried rice was what you'd expect. Jiro thought it was a little heavy on the peas.



Satchel liked his soup. It was basically noodles and beef. He declined to add any of the extras that came with it--cilantro, jalapenos, etc.



He also ate the rice that came with my dish.



I loved mine. It was just the right amount of spicy, with lots of onions.

Our total was $34.99 and Jiro had enough leftover rice for another meal. We will definitely be back!

p.s. I did not get to check out the restrooms. I did notice a cooler full of ice cream by the front door. Luckily most toddlers would be too short to see in!