Picture of Mama Pho, SE8 5DG

Historical version 4 of Mama Pho, SE8 5DG (view current version)

  • 24 Evelyn Street, SE8 5DG (streetmap) (osm) (gmap) (bingmap) (streetview)
  • 11am-3pm, 5pm-10:30pm Mon; closed Tue; 11am-3pm, 5pm-10:30pm Wed-Sat; noon-10pm Sun

Mama Pho is a small Vietnamese cafe/restaurant in Deptford. It opened in Spring 2009 on the old site of Cafe East (which has now moved to Surrey Quays), and it's run by a member of the same family as the management of Cafe East. Note that it's closed all day on Tuesdays.

Inside, it's fairly cafe-like in ambience, seating about 30 people; the layout hasn't changed much from its days as Cafe East.

Kake visited on a Friday lunchtime in April 2009, shortly after their initial opening. When I got there around 1:30pm there were a couple of other customers, but it never got really busy. Capital Radio was playing, but not too loud.

I had the bun bo hue (spicy beef noodle soup, £6) photo. This had just the right level of chilli heat for my palate, though no doubt bob would have wanted to add some of the extra chillies that came on the side along with lemon wedges, beansprouts, and herbs. The beef was fairly lean but not dry, and in a quantity generous enough that at one point I was playing "hunt the noodle". The broth was well-flavoured. I'd order this again.

Lemon iced tea (not home-made; from a can or bottle or something) was £1.50. I don't think they're licensed for alcohol.

I also got a portion of goi cuon (fresh summer rolls, £4.50) to take away and share with bob later on; these were just fine, with plenty of herbs and the right proportion of prawns and pork.

I'll happily come back, though now the area has three decent Vietnamese places (here, Cafe East, Banzi), it's getting hard to decide where to go!

Accessibility: One step up to get in, and the toilet is down two steps.

See also:

Last visited by Kake, 24 April 2009. Opening hours taken from a menu on that visit.
OS X co-ord: 536110 OS Y co-ord: 178486 (Latitude: 51.488435 Longitude: -0.039343)
This is version 4 (as of 2009-07-25 15:49:17). View current version. List all versions.