The Late-Night Love Story of Koreatown and Vietnamese Pho

Koreatown is no stranger to turnover. The neighborhood’s rich restaurant scene has long supported traditional Korean food like the pork belly bossam of Kobawoo House or the marinated crabs of Ondal. But within the confines of Koreatown, Vietnamese pho has experienced exceeding popularity since the early ’90s. Why Vietnam’s national dish, and why in Koreatown? It turns out that steaming bowls of beef broth and chewy rice noodles serve as panaceas for late-night hangovers while also working as quick, satisfying, and reasonably priced family meals.

Koreatown currently boasts nine pho restaurants, with a half-dozen along Western Avenue alone. Opened by either Vietnamese or Korean Americans, pho enjoyed a boom in the late 1990s and into the early aughts, initially becoming popular with the late-night crowd. During the ’90s, amid Koreatown’s pool halls and cafes, pho restaurants became inextricably associated with the area’s nightlife. Taebum Lee, whose family has operated restaurants such as Dha Rae Oak and Yu Jung Nak Hi, says Pho LA, previously located at the busy Alexandria Plaza at Sixth and Alexandria Streets, was one of the first Koreatown pho restaurants. “They were one of the first 24-hour restaurants in K-Town besides Hodori,” says Lee. “We used to go there on late nights, at 1 or 3 a.m. That’s when it became a hangover food and pho culture kind of exploded.”

Lee recalls eating pho late at night but still having to wait in line for 30 to 40 minutes as the nightclub and bar crowd milled around for bowls of hot Vietnamese noodle soup. Back then, it seemed impossible to go more than a few blocks without seeing a pho spot in a strip mall. “That’s the culture in K-Town: As soon as you see one concept work, you’re gonna see 10 of them open,” says Lee. “At that time it was pho and noraebang [karaoke]. Eventually, it became competitive.”

It makes sense that pho took off for the Korean community, says Daniel Kim, whose family has owned produce purveyors and sushi restaurants in Koreatown since he was a child. “Seolleongtang and soups are things we have in our daily diet that we understand. Pho had condiments and vegetables that we’re used to,” says Kim. “But it was also unique for us, with cilantro and basil. Pho was something different and something familiar at the same time, something accessible.” Kim claims that the pho at Pho 2000, one of the original mainstays in Koreatown that still operates three locations in the area, tastes the same as it did two decades ago.

Korean restaurants tend to mirror each other quickly when their operators spot a hot new business trend, and within any close-knit community, competition will quickly arise over who has “the best” version of a given dish. Pho’s proliferation meant the comforting, affordable dish became a favorite for other crowds. Grandparents would go with their kids on Sundays after church; college students would visit with their families during school breaks. But as the nightlife scene decelerated in recent years from changing demographics and the impact of the pandemic, the pho scene leveled off.

Compared to traditional Vietnamese pho, Koreatown-style pho is typically lighter and less full-bodied, the broth close to a clearer base of galbitang or seolleongtang than the star anise and fish sauce-forward soups of Garden Grove and Westminster. At Seoul Pho, located on the rooftop food court of California Market, the pho comes with the option of a large beef rib, the broth heavy on garlic, and supplemented with notes of sweetness from a side of pickled red onions. These flavors resonate with the Korean palate, which appreciates heady garlic and sweet, pickled items, and the big beef bone swimming in broth is familiar to those who grew up eating galbitang.

Pho 24 owner Connie Park aims to keep her broth simple. “My style is Koreatown style, not Vietnam style. I don’t want that strong flavor,” said Park. The Pho 24 pho is less salty and more onion-forward — Park is quick to emphasize that her broth uses only sea salt and no MSG. Her top seller is a spicy oyster soup geared toward Korean palates. Sliced squash, cabbage, shrimp, and mushrooms are first tossed in a wok. The broth, which uses the same beef base as the standard pho dishes, is mixed with four types of chiles, giving the soup a red tint. Mussels and oysters swirl atop a pile of rice noodles. The finished product is an umami-rich seafood stew with a healthy kick, a sort of jjampong overlaid on pho, a dish that could only be found in Koreatown.

With so many great Korean soups, and even other Asian specialties like ramen or Taiwanese beef noodle soup favored across the city, pho has remained a beloved dish in Koreatown. But there may be another reason for its staying power. “Knowing Korean business owners, it’s simple,” says Kim. “It’s not hard to put some beef bones in some water. Rice noodles, a little veggies, and beef broth? That’s easy to execute.” The dish’s affordability, compounded with its similarities to Korean soups, made it a no-brainer business model for the community. But these days, Koreatown’s culinary offerings are more diverse and varied, and late-night specialists such as BCD Tofu House with its bubbling tofu stews and Sun Nong Dan with shareable stone plates of galbijjim added new competition to the perch that the 24-hour pho restaurants once held.

The enduring popularity of pho restaurants in Koreatown, whether the 24-hour model or shops with Korean influences, suggests that steaming soup bowls continue to resonate in the neighborhood, no matter the form. Younger Koreatown diners might be more excited about shabu-shabu or tonkotsu ramen, two dishes that are trending upwards, but pho is now classic Koreatown fare, a dish that’s always there to help cure hangovers or fill hungry patrons for a good price.

Seoul Pho is located at 450 S. Western Avenue, Floor 3, Los Angeles, CA 90020. Pho24 is located at 3450 W. 6th Street, Suite 109-B, Los Angeles, CA 90020.