There is a plaza on Glades Road, just west of the Turnpike, that you have driven past several hundred times without registering a single storefront in it. Suite 110 is a small Vietnamese restaurant called Phở Boca, and the thing you need to know about it is the broth. It comes out steaming and slightly cloudy with spice, deep and savory without being heavy, and the rare beef finishes cooking in it right at your table. Most people drink what is left straight from the bowl once the noodles are gone. It is open every single day, which in West Boca is rarer than it sounds.

What It's Actually Like Inside

First thing to correct, because a lot of people assume otherwise from the outside: this is not a counter. You walk in, someone seats you, and a server takes your order. The room is small and casual, a couple dozen tables, nothing designed to impress anybody. On a weeknight you might have four other tables going. On a Friday at 7 you will wish you had called.

Order the Phở Tái Chín if it is your first visit. That is the rare beef and brisket bowl, and it is the clearest way to taste what the kitchen is doing, since the rare slices go in raw and cook in the broth while you are pulling herbs off the side plate. If you want heat, the Bún Bò Huế is the chili-forward noodle soup for people who think regular pho is too mild. If you are with someone who refuses soup in August, get them the Bánh Mì Thịt Nướng, grilled pork on a baguette with a shell that actually cracks, or the Xào Sã Ot, which is the spicy lemongrass wok entree and the dish regulars just call the lemongrass chicken.

The menu runs well past pho. There are vermicelli bowls, rice plates with grilled pork chops or shrimp, fried rice, pad thai, and a full vegetarian and vegan section including a veggie pho with its own broth. Save room for the Vietnamese iced coffee with condensed milk. It is sweet and strong enough to count as dessert, and there is a three-color version if you want to be a little extra about it.

The Insider Move

Two things almost nobody posts about. The first is the weekday combo lunch special, which starts at $14.95 and runs 11:30 to 2, Monday through Friday. That is the cheapest way into this kitchen. The second is better: they pour two-for-one on wine and beer Monday through Friday from 1 to 5. Show up at 4 on a Thursday and you are getting a late lunch and a discounted drink in a quiet dining room, which is not a bad way to end a work week.

The other move is the seven-day schedule. Most pho spots in the county take a day off, so file this one under Sunday-night dinner and Monday lunch, when your usual options are dark. And because the room is genuinely small, call ahead at (561) 245-7178 if you are coming on a weekend or bringing more than four people. They take reservations and they recommend using them.

What People Are Saying

The Yelp listing has climbed past 390 reviews and 500 photos, which is a real paper trail for a small plaza restaurant in West Boca. The reviews the restaurant features on its own site circle the same few things: a deeply savory, aromatic broth with generous portions, a banh mi one diner described as impeccably crispy, and staff who talk people through the menu. One half-Vietnamese regular wrote that the lemongrass chicken tastes like his mom made it, which is about the highest bar a Vietnamese restaurant gets graded against.

A few people have also met the owner on the floor and come away saying he made them feel like guests in his house. That tracks with the room. It was also named a Readers' Choice finalist for Best Vietnamese Restaurant by the Boca Raton Observer in 2025, so the locals were already onto it.

One Quick Note

The kitchen runs three chefs, each with more than twenty years behind them, which explains why a strip-plaza spot turns out broth this consistent. That is the only backstory worth your time here. Everything else is in the bowl.

Save this one for the next cold-ish night, the next hangover, or the next Sunday when everything else in West Boca is closed.

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