Steve Dolinsky Went On Epic Quest To Find Chicago's Best Pho

By Anthony Todd in Food on Jan 4, 2017 3:20PM

Pho at Tank Noodle, #17 on Dolinsky's list. Photo via Facebook.

Many Chicagoans only know Steve Dolinsky from his short appearances as ABC's Hungry Hound or his pretty face hanging in (seemingly) every restaurant in town. But in reality, he's a pretty darn serious food expert, and he particularly excels in doing massive, city-wide studies of a particular dish. In 2015, he did the most extensive study of pizza we've ever seen. This time, he's turned his attention to pho.

Pho, the amazingly comforting Vietnamese soup, is a seemingly simple dish, but like most simple dishes, the gap in quality between the best and the worst can be enormous. There's a ton of subtle variety, most of which comes from the flavors added to the the broth and the quality of the cooking. It's also tough to compare phos between restaurants without a pretty big sample size.

Dolinksy (and his "Pho-Conspirator" Paul Nguyen) have gotten that big sample size. They tasted every single restaurant in Chicago they could find where pho is a main offering—a total of 31 places. They created an elaborate statistical ranking system. They even discovered an inverse relationship between price and quality, as the more expensive phos fared worse in their rankings. Starting today, they're releasing the full results of all of their soup-tastic work.

Here's the list of phos ranked 12-31, just released. The best on this list is King Pho, number 12, in Edgewater, but the best of the best won't be revealed until this Friday. And unlike Donald Trump, when Dolinsky says he has secret food information to reveal, he really means it. So tune into his website Thursday for phos 6-11 and Friday for 1-5.