Pickled garlic sauce with pho and pad thai near Ajou Univ, Suwon

This is what eating well looks like

This is exactly what eating well and being happy about it looks like~

• Foreign food, but it suits both locals and Korean diners just fine~
• Tasty, and the portions are generous too~
• Kind, friendly staff~

I went to Madam Hao, a pho spot near Ajou University.

Which alley in the Ajou food street?

All I know how to say in Vietnamese is basically 'nihao' level haha, but Madam Hao's atmosphere is really nice. You know that alley near Ajou University full of good restaurants? Coming down from Ajou it's on the left, and from the Ajou subway station construction site it's the alley on the right — that's where the food street forms.

Parking, and a hall split into inside and outside

There's proper parking too. The layout is unusual — the outer hall and inner hall are separate. Not sure why, but it's distinctive. The inner hall has about 8 tables of 4, so it's fine for groups.

The outer hall has 4-seat and 8-seat tables too. We ate by the window. Inside and outside are separate, but the doors aren't closed, so both sides feel cozy.

What we ordered and the prices

They run various review events, and there's a nice guide on how to eat the food deliciously.

Pad thai ₩12,000 Beef brisket pho ₩11,000 Bun cha ₩8,000 Total order: ₩31,000

Even if you don't know Vietnamese food well, these three are the basics.

• Pad thai: this feels like a mix of stir-fried udon and omurice haha. Really good. Nutty and savory~
• Pho: everyone already knows this one~
• Bun cha: it's got a sweet-and-sour pork meatball vibe, kind of like a cross between sweet-and-sour pork, dumplings, and rice cake wraps. Tasty~ (Sometimes I crave it more than actual sweet-and-sour pork)

People sometimes mix it up with Thailand's tom yum goong, but this time I properly learned the difference.

The menu is organized into meal dishes, drinking-snack dishes, and sides. Lots of salads too — a lot of Vietnamese people are slim, and I figure it's probably because they eat a lot of salad haha.

When I said that, my companion's reply was predictable, as always haha.

Even elephants only eat grass~ haha

Madam Hao's own sauce: pickled garlic

If it's tasty, you should eat plenty of it. Eat a lot, move a lot, no worries~ Madam Hao has a distinctive sauce of its own.

Can you guess what it is? It's pickled garlic. Not spicy at all, and the ultimate in sweet-and-sour.

On top of the usual peanut sauce and spicy sauce, this makes the pho and pad thai taste even better when eaten together. It really wakes up your appetite. Their pickling skills are no joke.

Kimchi isn't the only fermented food out there haha. Every country has something it does well, and every restaurant has its own distinctive sauce and secret technique. At Madam Hao, the pickled garlic is a standout! Just be careful — if you try too much at once, your nose might sting a bit haha.

Food photos and the meal

The two main dishes arrived. Pad thai, love it~ Next to the pad thai were bean sprouts and chives — you could dip them into the pho, but we decided to just dip a little~ The portions are huge~~ I tried to get a good photo, but it didn't quite work out today either haha.

So here's a shot with everything laid out at once.

Beef brisket pho — the noodle boiling is on point

Korean food is great, but sometimes you crave Vietnamese food. Just like you don't only eat naengmyeon (cold noodles) in summer, sometimes you crave warm pho even on a warm day, and Madam Hao's pho really delivers. They add finely sliced green onion, which gives it a crisp bite that's outstanding.

And the noodles are boiled to a perfect texture — right between springy and easy to bite through. Boil them too long and they get mushy; boil them too little and they turn out like naengmyeon haha.

Pad thai — no cilantro worries here

The pad thai is genuinely delicious. I usually go for pho as a hangover cure after drinking too much, and I never used to be into pad thai, but after trying Madam Hao's, I thought, 'this is no joke.'

Really tasty. The kind of flavor kids would love~ Even I, a picky eater, found it a great fit. (You always have to watch out for cilantro when eating pho, but here you don't have to worry about it at all! The flavor feels completely at home here!!)

Four pieces of bun cha, filling and satisfying

Four pieces of bun cha~ Packed full inside, so it's quite filling. Think of it as meat dumplings — it's got its own character, and it was a hearty, satisfying meal. Cleared the plate again today~ I hate leaving food, but I also don't finish food like this if it's not actually good haha.

Genuinely delicious. That was Madam Hao, the pho spot near Ajou University that I'd very happily visit again.

Who would I recommend this to?

Looking at the other customers, I'd recommend this to types like these~

There are a lot of kids there. They'd probably love pho. Kalguksu (knife-cut noodles) is great too, but pho noodles are soft with a really nice texture~ Lots of older folks too. I also saw a lot of solo diners having a drink alone (highball) with their meal. Couples on dates, of course, plenty of those too. Lunch and dinner hours probably get packed~ It was a really good meal. Thank you.