756 Woodside Road
Redwood City
OK, this isn’t in the Tenderloin either. So what.
Pho Happy Day replaced Happy Day Speedy Chicken, which was a disappointing Chinese joint near my house. I’m not sure if it’s new management or what, but it’s now a Chinese and Vietnamese place, rather than a Chinese and fried chicken place. And it’s now much less disappointing.
I judge Chinese places by their pork fried rice. I will eternally mourn the demise of New Haven’s Main Garden, whose pork fried rice fed me at least twice a week in that period of wasted youth immediately following college. I’ll give a place a second chance if its lemon chicken is disappointing, or if its chow mein is greasy. Bad pork fried rice is the unforgivable sin.
Pho Happy Day is my new favorite pork fried rice. $6.25 gets you an enormous box of fried rice, full of flavor without being greasy, with hefty cubes of barbecued pork throughout. It’s a fairly dark fried rice, with the almost smoky flavor that comes with it. It’s damn good.
I also got an order of lemon chicken. It was $5.75, and I think it was pretty good — but frankly, I didn’t pay that much attention.
Originally published on Tournedos