Here is a fact that sounds made up: Pho Saigon on Chew Street has been feeding Allentown through recessions, a pandemic, and every winter the Lehigh Valley has thrown at it, and somehow it still flies almost completely under the radar of anyone who didn’t grow up eating there or get dragged in by a coworker on a Wednesday.
The place is on Chew, a stretch of the West End that doesn’t get a lot of ink. The building is modest in the way that restaurants serious about their food tend to be — no imported tile, no mood lighting, no sign that looks like it was designed by anyone with a portfolio. What there is: a steam table, a long menu laminated to within an inch of its life, and broth that has clearly been going since before most Allentown restaurants had Instagram accounts.
The pho is the reason to go, and specifically the beef pho, which arrives in a bowl that is frankly too large for the table and smells like someone’s grandmother made a series of very good decisions over about eighteen hours. The broth is dark and clean at the same time — a trick that takes real patience to pull off. You get the usual accompaniments: bean sprouts, Thai basil, lime, jalapeño, hoisin, sriracha. The brisket option is the right call on a cold day, though the rare beef that finishes cooking in the bowl has its advocates too.
Don’t skip the spring rolls. They’re the fresh kind, wrapped in rice paper, with shrimp and pork and a peanut dipping sauce that is good enough to be embarrassing. The banh mi also shows up occasionally as a lunch special, and if it’s on the board, you take it. The Vietnamese iced coffee — strong, sweet, over ice — is a full course in itself and costs roughly what a vending machine Coke does elsewhere in the city.
Lunch runs busier than dinner, mostly with the office-lunch crowd from nearby businesses who figured this place out years ago and aren’t telling anyone. The room seats maybe forty people comfortably and gets loud when it fills up, which it does on weekday afternoons. The staff is efficient without being brusque, and they’ve seen enough regulars to make new people feel like they’re not fumbling through a stranger’s kitchen.
Prices remain, somehow, from a different era. A large bowl of pho is under twelve dollars. A full lunch for two, with drinks and an appetizer, rarely breaks twenty-five. It is unclear how this is still possible in 2024, but it is, and complaining about it would be gauche.
If you want a dining room with exposed ductwork and a craft cocktail list and a hostess who will mention the chef’s culinary school, there are options in Allentown for you. If you want a bowl of broth that tastes like someone actually cared about making it, Pho Saigon on Chew is where you go. Bring cash just in case, go on a weekday, and get there before the lunch rush eats the last of the good seats by the window.
