It takes serious fried fish balls to break into Orlando’s Vietnamese food scene. It’s kind of our thing — the City Bánh-mì-full. Little Saigon is both its epicenter and increasingly competitive playing field, where Michelin mentions sit shoulder to shoulder with mom & pop mainstays. Between a pho bowl that runneth over and real estate headaches fostered by entrenched local landlords, the dynamic for aspiring restaurateurs in Mills 50 is, shall we say, bare-knuckle.
With this, Pho Bar has officially entered the ring. The indie chain from South Florida receives bonus chutzpah points for rhyming its brand with an acronym synonymous with disaster, even if we found the recently opened eatery on Colonial Drive far from FUBAR’ed. In fact, Pho Bar is polished, efficient and, on our first visit at noon on a Tuesday, filled up beyond all recognition.