‘This might be the best pho I’ve had in my life,’ says Keith Lee at Toronto restaurant
It’s been nearly two years since food mega-influencer Keith Lee broke the Toronto internet when he reviewed restaurants around the city, and he’s finally back.
Keith Lee’s April 2024 tour of Toronto was a “you just had to be there” moment for the books. For a week straight, the MMA fighter-turned-food reviewer visited restaurants around the city, turning mom-and-pops into internet sensations overnight.
Weston-Mount Dennis Bahamian restaurant Old Nassau, Dundas West’s Sisters & Co., and Scarborough’s Sumaq Iraqi Charcoal Grill were just a few of the local establishments to get a boost from the so-called Keith Lee effect.
While not all the restaurants he visited got glowing reviews, the food tour put Toronto’s culinary scene in the spotlight of Lee’s more than 17 million TikTok followers and secured the city as one of Lee’s favourites in the world.
As of March 2026, he’s officially back in the city, and the Entertainment District’s Pho Ngoc Yen location was his first stop.
@keith_lee125 Pho Ngoc Yén taste test 💕 would you try it ? 💕 #foodcritic ♬ original sound – Keith Lee
Lee’s visit to Pho Ngoc Yen appears to have been something of a happy accident. Only in town for 24 hours, Lee starts off the video by announcing that, in the mood for pho, he would just start walking until he finds somewhere that serves it.
“I’ve always said that Toronto has some of the best restaurants and some of the nicest people and the greatest atmospheres, and this is exactly that,” Lee says, before panning to a heaping, steaming bowl of beef short rib pho.
The verdict?
“This might be the best pho I’ve ever had in my life,” Lee says in the video. “It’s spicy, it’s fresh, the amount of lemongrass in here is incredible.”
In the end, he ranks his bowl of pho a 9.4 out of 10.
Lee isn’t the only big name who’s given Pho Ngoc Yen a public shout-out. In fall 2025, Kehlani also visited the chain’s downtown Toronto location and proclaimed it the “best Vietnamese” food she had “ever had.”
Pho Ngoc Yen is located at 350 Adelaide St. W., with additional locations in Mississauga and Etobicoke.