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Deciding on where to go for lunch is often a last minute proposition at my office. Just yesterday, Moody and I had already turned onto Price Road before we decided where we wanted to eat. When we can't initially come up with something, we fall back on one of our usual standards. Yesterday, we decided on Cyclo, a Vietnamese place near our office that we frequent. Last time we went there, we had a bad experience with the service, which isn't typical, so we decided to let them redeem themselves. We like Cyclo for a number of reasons including good food, decent service, and the fact that it isn't a chain restaurant like so many other places out here.

One of my favorite dishes at Cyclo is the Pho Ap Cho (crispy rice noodle cake). It's a stir fry of beef, scallops, shrimp, and vegetables with an oyster sauce served atop crispy fried noodle cakes. I liked it so much that I'd stopped working my way through the various dishes on the menu because I craved it every time we visited for lunch. I've ordered the Pho Ap Cho so many times, in fact, that when Justina (the owner) came by the table, she pointed at me and said "crispy rice noodle". I gave her pause when I piped up that I'd try the Beef Chow Fun this time. After reading about it over at Jack's Brain, I decided to give it a shot.

When the plate arrived, I was initially disappointed as it looked as though the portion was a bit skimpy. I was wrong. By the time I was half-way through the plate, I was getting full. There was a good ratio of meat to noodles, and the sauce evenly coated the noodles without becoming soupy. I thought it had good flavor overall, but the beef was a little tough. Adding a little sriracha made it even better. All said, it was good, but not nearly as good as the Pho Ap Cho. I really need to come back here for dinner again with a bigger appetite as I'm still waiting to try their version of a green papaya salad.

Moody ended up going with one of their gigantic beef noodle soup dishes. I'm partial to the Pho Hai San, a seafood version, myself, but the beef version is also very good. One of the best parts is the plate of accompaniments - lime, sprouts and basil. They all serve to highlight the flavor of the dish. Moody's only complaint here was that there didn't seem to be the usual amount of beef in the soup.