Pho fur or Faux Pho?

As prefaced a few days ago, I took the PHO CHALLENGE in Hanoi a few days ago. How far can you go on three bowls of pho (and a pain aux raisins)? The answer is, a long, long way. In the past, I have, I confess, been a little reticent about ordering pho because I have had pronunciation issues. Is it ph-oh, as in, ‘I wish that little pho and pho over there would quieten down’? Is it ph-urr, as in, ‘Egad, sir, that is a devilish pho you cast on my good reputation’? Or, again, ph-ah, as in, ‘Do, re, mi, pho, so, la, ti, do’? These vowel sounds, I can now inform you, are open too wide to pass muster. My friends, I summon the schwa and exhort you all to engage in the great Australian sport of vowel squashing. To get a fabulous bowl of noodle soup, call for ph-er, rhymes with, the, as in ‘She was askin’ pho trouble.’

Onwards then. Pho is reason to sing the praises of a good chicken stock. As I’ve been eating alone, I’ve been humming small songs of tribute to the stockpot. All the pho stocks I’ve eaten have been chicken-based with plenty of onion thrown in. The best have had lots of star anise and coriander root and ginger added to the mix and have brought tears to my eyes. Basic pho involves poaching rice noodles in stock and chucking them in a bowl with some sort of protein and some chopped spring onions, dredging the lot with stock and serving it all up. Good pho has poached bean shoots, lots and lots of coriander and garlic chives, a bowl of greens on the side and plenty of lime wedges.

Breakfast pho ga
Chicken pho for breakfast at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. This was the pho of the day, even if there were no accompanying greens. Aromatic stock,plenty of herbs, excellent condiments (pickled garlic…) and good squishy noodles. It provided me with the fortitude necessary to admire the lines of the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum.
Ah, totalitarian architecture.

Lunch pho

I perched on the pavement and had tofu pho for lunch. I ordered this with extra tomato and it arrived with a bowl full of intriguingly bitter greenery. Alas, the tofu pho wasn’t much chop. The stock tasted of chicken bones and tomato soup out of a can, the tofu resembled upholstery foam in texture, taste, and appearance, and the noodles were overcooked. This is a shame because the best pho I have eaten in my entire life was a tofu and tomato number.
I ate this at the markets in Sapa, in the mountains in the north of Vietnam. I didn’t need to wait to see the chook being hauled out of the stock-pot as I was slurping away to know that there was nothing vegetarian about this soup. If you look closely, you can see the plateful of innards I could have elected to have in my soup. This is the Ur-pho (try saying that out loud). Freshly fried tofu, handfuls of greenery, outstanding stock. Oh my, would that word could wield the matter. I fumble for superlatives. How good was it? Firstly, it was a little chilly in Sapa and as I started to eat, steam fogged up my glasses. The glasses went; the eyelashes did not bat. Secondly, this bowl of soup has twice figured in my dreams.

Dinner pho bo
I moved to pho with brisket at another hole-in-the-wall. This was good, workaday pho. A strong stock, decent noodles, lots of herbs, and no weird bits hanging off the slices of brisket. I suspect that one encounters a truly excellent beef pho if one braves more weird cuts of meat. There were crowds outside a pho bo joint down the road. I joined them until I got to the menu and had an attack of squeamishness when I realised that I had arrived in offal central. Specials included beef heart, lots of intestines, beef penis and testicles (way beyond my budget), beef liver… Had I not had a sixteen hour train trip ahead of me, I might have discovered a cache of culinary courage. Instead, I wriggled out of the queue and grazed in slightly more mundane pastures.