Pho Dau Bo Restaurant

The menu at Pho Dau Bo runs into the hundreds, and the numbering matters. The 300s carry pho — rare beef, well-done flank, beef ball, BBQ pork, tendon, tripe, the special assorted bowl. The 400s carry vermicelli plates. The 500s carry the dedicated vegetarian section with its own V-prefixed entries. The 600s carry fried rice and stir-fried noodles. The A-numbered appetizers run their own column of rolls, salads, and starters. A table that does not agree on what kind of Vietnamese meal it wants does not need to agree. The numbered menu has been sixteen years on the same Geneva Street address.

Pho is the lead, and the depth is where it earns it. Pho Tai serves rare beef in clear aromatic broth with onions, green onion, and cilantro. Pho Nam Bo Vien layers well-done flank under beef balls. Pho Dac Biet pulls the room toward the assorted bowl — rare beef, well-done flank, soft tendon, tripe, and beef ball in one round of broth — for the diner who wants the whole pho lineup at once. Pho Xa Xiu carries barbecued pork through the same broth for a leaner bowl. The starter column does the same work in miniature. Cha Gio is the pork-and-shrimp spring roll, wrapped tight, carrots and taro and rice-stick noodles inside, fish sauce alongside. Goi Cuon Tom Thit is the cold roll counterpart, shrimp and pork and vermicelli rolled in rice paper with peanut sauce. Either lands at the table while the pho is still being chosen.

The harder Vietnamese plates sit in the same menu and read like routine work. Bun Bo Hue arrives in the Hue-style spicy beef-and-pork broth with vermicelli. Banh Xeo — the turmeric-yellow rice-flour crepe folded over shrimp and pork — gets its own listing alongside the standards. Com Tam Thap Cam stacks grilled chicken, grilled pork chop, shredded pork skin, steamed egg, and fried egg over broken rice. Mi Hoanh Thanh sets shrimp-and-pork wontons in egg noodles with barbecued pork. The 600s carry Pad Thai Tom Ga and a Yang Chow fried rice with barbecued pork, sausage, and shrimp. The Yang Chow plate and the Pad Thai sit two columns over from the Pho Dac Biet, on the same single-page check.

The vegetarian column is the test the breadth keeps passing. V505 fresh rolls swap fried tofu and pickled radish into the rice paper. V508 sets tofu and mixed vegetables in a mushroom-base pho broth that holds together as a real bowl rather than a courtesy listing. A vegetarian diner orders without a translator, which is what makes the table actually mixed instead of theoretically so. The everyday operating logic answers the same question. The dining room opens at ten and closes at ten, seven days a week. The Original Banh Mi — cold cuts, Vietnamese sausage, pork belly, pate, pickled vegetables, cucumber, and cilantro on a fresh baguette — handles the quick lunch and the takeout call. Ca Phe Sua Da, the filtered Vietnamese iced coffee with condensed milk, closes the bill at the same speed. SkipTheDishes takes the order when the table is the couch.

Pho Dau Bo opened on Geneva Street in 2010 and has been working the same address since. Downtown St. Catharines is a working block, and the dining room sits on it with a menu sized for the way a mixed table actually orders — across columns rather than within one. A walk-in lands a table fast; the kitchen turns it; a Vietnamese coffee or a side of cold rolls closes the bill. Sixteen years of doing it that way has made the numbered menu the easiest way to feed a St. Catharines table that wants Vietnamese and cannot agree on which part.