Phonomenal

oh, gotta love the puns!
Phonomenal is a great little Vietnamese stall in the San Pedro Square market. Pretty decent Vietnamese food, but their meats are a little skimpy, especially on the Korean Short Rib platter.
I’m thrilled they have oxtail phở as a regular item since a lot of places don’t carry this. The broth is text-​book perfect and is enough to feed two.
I’ve also had the vermicelli or rice noodle bowl and it hits the spot and includes grilled pork, shrimp and a crispy little egg roll.
They also have a decent selection of milk teas. My favorite is the jasmine milk tea.
This is my go-​to lunch spot at San Pedro Square.

This is my go-​to phở spot at San Pedro Square Market, and maybe in all of the downtown area. I usually get their #2 bowl of noodle soup with steak, meatballs, and brisket. I’m fond of their broth and the ingredients are plentiful. Sad they don’t have tripe. But still, this bowl is perfect for when your sick. I’m also a fan of their spring rolls, especially when I feel like eating light.
I’m a big fan of this place for obvious reasons… friendly and attentive customer service, a bowl of hot goodness, an extensive menu, and cleanliness.
In fact, they scored relatively high amongst other phở joints on the Santa Clara County Environmental Health Facility inspection report (SCC DineOut App). They scored 87 out of 100 in 2015, while many other phở joints in San Jose score below 80. Phonomenal is one of the cleanest phở joints in San Jose.
That’s pretty phenomenal!

PHONOMENAL in the San Pedro Market Square has some fantastic Asian Fusion! Admittedly, I usually get a burger at Konjoe when at SPMS — but the last two times I have hit up Phonomenal instead.
Last time I had their combo fried rice, and this time I had the chicken pad thai. Both were fresh and tasty! And the portion is huge!
Highly recommended to try this spot — you won’t be disappointed!
4 stars!

Decided to give this place another try.
Shaken beef with fried rice seemed to have been preheated. Beef was chewy and old tasting. I paid $ 16 for a lunch plate that ended up in the waste basket. Yes, that bad! BOOOOOO :(

I got the noodle soup with chicken. It was delicious!!! It was a good size. I didn’t even finish it. The service was really fast for lunch hour.

Came here for dinner with friends. Cheap Asian food, not very tasty but I felt like soup.
I asked for the veggie noodle soup with tofu, they said its vegetarian. I saw a few pieces of chicken almost when I was done with the soup. So gross!
I am not a truly vegetarian but when I ask for a vegetarian dish I don’t expect to eat chicken. I showed the chef the chicken they didn’t know what to say. Too bad.

This place is better than ‘On a roll’ just because they give better portions. I like their ox-​tail soup here as well as the PHOnomenal. =] Also, the owners are accommodating.

Worst food ever… the food seems to be old and just reheated to make the illusion of fresh food I work in the food industry and this is by far the worst food in the market.

Very good food. I just tried the fried rice. It was soooo goooood! I would recommend this place. Just need to have a little patient with the guy who takes your order since he has a strong accent, which i loved!

I am Vietnamese and I have to say this place has the best phở in town! The meat, oxtail, broth are so fresh and delicious. Service is awesome too. The owner is super nice and polite. I would come back for more.

We were downtown to see Barry Manilow, and my ex-​wife and her husband were along with us, as both the wife and ex-​wife are Barry Manilow fans.
Barry who? Yes, we are old farts, as Manilow sang in the 1970s and 80s –when most Unilocalers were still in diapers.
The ex-​wife had it all planned out that we would eat beforehand at this drinking place called Henry High Life. When we got there, the line was out the door, so we headed over to San Pedro square.
The line for the Spaghetti Factory was also out the door, and besides my wife doesn’t care for that chain restaurant.
We head inside the common food court with it’s 17 fast food restaurants. The ex and her husband share a hamburger at Konjoe burger, some oriental Asian burger joint– never heard of an Asian burger joint!
The wife and I head next door at this Vietnamese place called Phonomenon. It’s a Phở soup place –what the Phở?
Now I’m not into soups, let alone Phở soups, but do like noodles.
The wife gets the $ 11 #23 vermicelli rice noodles with pork and beef, prawns, peanuts, carrots, egg roll pieces, pork. The dish is pretty good, tasty, with ample meat. The wife skims the top, leaving the almost tasteless noodles.
And I get the $ 15 #27 seafood over crispy noodles lots of broccoli and cabbage, few pieces of white fish, and 3 prawns. This dish is on the dry side, as there isn’t much gravy to balance out the crispy noodles –it’s like eating sandpaper, it’s so dry.
This is one of my ex-wife’s favorites, as she loves the Hong Kong style crispy noodles.
Now my ex and her husband finish their burger, and she’s looking enviously at my noodle dish. She comes over with plate in hand, and asks if she can eat some of my vegetables. Sure why not? Chopsticks flash, and one broccoli disappears in her mouth, then another, and a third. Finally she grabs one of my prawns, and plops it right in her mouth!
Always tight fisted, my ex is always ready to take advantage of any opening, even though she and her husband both earn six figure incomes.
I check out the neighbors at the communal eating bench table, and see lots of Asians slurping down their soups, with bits of soup splattering over their tops –good to wear a dark color, and not white when eating Phở soups.
Mediocre service in getting the dish, and you are supposed to bus your trays and bowls and separate by trash, trays, and bowls on exiting, but lots of people just leave their dishes on the communal table. I didn’t see anyone picking up the dishes, nor cleaning the table tops.
We just do hike on over to the SAP center to catch the 730pm show.
And they do validate parking at Phonomenal.
List of the 17 fast food places in San Pedro square at:
//www.sanpedrosquaremarket.com/eat/
We will definitely eat somewhere else, as Phonomenal is anything but.

This noodle place at San Pedro Square Market has been around for a while and I hadn’t gotten around to trying it until recently. I was in a noodle mood, so I came here to check out the menu. The oxtail soup sounded delicious, but I ended up ordering #5 the veggie rice noodle soup, which comes with tofu and a whole lot of veggies. After I placed my order and paid (with credit card via square), I was given one of those buzzer pager things. It wasn’t very busy at Phonomenal and I’d say that my food took somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes to come out. My noodles came in a real bowl and on a cafeteria style tray. They also gave me a little sauce cup of hoisin and sriracha, as well as a little tray of sprouts and pepper slices. There was a lot of broccoli and carrots and cabbage (which I love), as well as celery (which I’m not a fan of). The tofu and the rice noodles were yummy. I was really craving noodles and this really hit the spot. I’ll definitely come back to try the oxtail soup and maybe some of their other offerings. It’s a little more pricier than phở/​Vietnamese food places, which are so abundant in San Jose, but still not bad since most of the dishes are under $ 10. Also, the name is awesome!

#23 and the oxtail soup are probably my favorites. Some dishes aren’t as good as expected like honey walnut shrimp (a little too flour-​y) compared to a lot of other places, but these two are usually pretty good to stick to.
Haven’t tried the phở but the service was great. Really nice people working the cashier.

I came on a great day during sf beer week! The lively drums and sax contributed to a sweet atmosphere.
I only wanted a quick bite to eat so I ordered the BBQ meat with shrimp fresh rolls. that were indeed rolled to perfection, phonomenally! (I always loved the ingenuity of phở restaurants! – though this place had more to offer than the usual)
The service was quick and met with smiles. They had many choices to offer. Overall,
It was pretty g, but a tad bit expensive compared to other Vietnamese fare establishments. But it is relatively similar to all business in the market place.

We met up for lunch with a couple friends over at San Pedro Square. Our friends were heading to Phonomenal for a few bowls of phở and it seemed like an excellent plan. Any day is a good day for soup to me. The broth was very good, I ate my phở spicy as usual.
In addition to the Phở, I ordered up the Salt and Pepper Crab for around $ 15. This plate was beautiful, delicious and so large that it provided enough crab for three meals. I gladly took this to work as lunch leftovers and made all my coworkers jealous.
Loved the food, it was fast, inexpensive and easy. What else can you ask for?!

Located inside of San Pedro Square Market, this place caught my attention and craving with their fried rice and chicken wings. When they rang me up and handed me a pager, I was shocked to have paid so much for what I had ordered. Anyways, it took almost 30 minutes to finally get my food and I know there was no one else before me so fail on that. The fried rice and chicken wings were pretty bland and flavorless. For being in SPSM, I expected them to be awesomely delicious like the rest of the eateries there. Overall, hella expensive for nothing spectacular.

Just don’t waste your time or money. Ordered to-​go and there was a small fly on the inside of the container, stuck to the wall. I didn’t let it bother me since my Phở cravings were so strong. Broth was disgusting — you can tell its from a can with a ton of msg added. While I was eating, the broth was so sweet that I felt like I was getting cavities in the process. First time I ever abandoned a bowl of Phở.
Worst Phở I have ever had my entire life.

Phonomenal actually deserves a 3.5 because there’s nothing better than having a sweet Vietnamese family trying to make Vietnamese food look appealing to a young, hip and mostly non-​Vietnamese crowd in downtown SJ.
However, the thing with Asian food is either you go all the way or just don’t call it Asian. Despite this prior knowledge, I wanted some spring rolls at that moment anyway. For $ 7, I had 4 pieces that were smaller than a typical Vietnamese deli’s. They had an interesting taste. Even with all the basic ingredients of a spring roll, they managed to look floppy and strange. I liked them enough to enjoy this meal but probably not enough to spend $ 7 on these again.

Fusion. Definitely fusion food. They have a pretty wide selection of Vietnamese food, but some ingredients have been altered.
I ordered the spring rolls with pork and shrimp and was pleasantly surprised by the amount of food I got for what paid, but this is in comparison to restaurants that typically charge $ 6 for TWO spring rolls as appetizers. I paid $ 7 for 4 fresh spring rolls. Like I said, some of the more traditional ingredients were swapped out and replaced with carrots and iceberg lettuce. A bit odd, but still good.
I like that this place is located in the San Pedro Market in a food court style setup so you could try a bunch if food.

Quick review update for their boba– it’s good! I got the Thai milk tea, which you can’t REALLY screw up, but the boba was on point. Chewy, sweet, and delicious.
$ 4 for a large, $ 3.5 for small. expensive, but they kinda have a monopoly so when you’ve got a craving, you really have no choice but to pony up the cash. Still not enough to dock a star though.