Pho 14 in Washington, DC. [Flickr: Mr. T in DC] Once you get past the pronunciation of phở ("fuh" instead of "foe"), the next question might be, why the obsession with numbers? What does the delicious Vietnamese brothy soup (with rice noodles, bean sprouts, lime, heaps of cilantro, and usually some meat strips) have to do with numbers? This thread over on Reddit.com clears it up: Oftentimes they're lucky numbers. "In some Asian cultures, eight is associated with wealth or prosperity. Repetition is considered desirable (Olympics started 8/8/08). Or to mark a date in Vietnamese history, or the owners' personal life." For example, Phở 67 could stand for 1967, the year the owner fled Vietnam during the war. The...
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Note: Read part 1 from Tam for the phở recipe and other tips. [Above photograph: Robyn Lee / Other photographs: Chichi Wang] It's impossible to keep phở a secret, Tam informed me. Such was the start of our phở get-together. She arrived at my apartment lugging a backpack crammed with gallons of phở broth, chunks of deboned oxtail, and little jars of fish sauce. Neatly sorted packets of noodles, bean sprouts, and mint completed the ensemble. If she'd brought a portable stove, she could've set up shop on my curb. Defatting the broth. Unlike Tam, I didn't grow up eating phở. My education of the broth began in Vietnamese noodle joints, where bowls of noodles are assembled and slapped onto...
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I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not what you would call “enamored” with Yelp. All too often I’ve looked up reviews for a joint, only to find that the rating it was communally granted was completely skewed by strange people. The kind of strange people who strangely decide to rate a pho place based on the bubble tea it serves. Seriously. Pho To Chau in Mountain View, California, is one such maligned joint. Perhaps I’m being too harsh on the strange people, and perhaps I have lower than average expectations of an eatery’s ambiance and service standards. But there aren’t many places to eat in Silicon Valley that aren’t spendy, so when I chance upon it, and...
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Bad pho doesn't mean the rest of the menu isn't worth trying. Even though one burned down last week due to an unfortunate fire, it feels like there are almost more Vietnamese restaurants on or near Chicago’s Argyle Street in the Little Vietnam neighborhood than there are in Vietnam itself. Over the years I’ve slurped down bowls of steamy pho from the majority of them as frequently as the McKenzie brothers drink beer. I figure the basic meaty broth of pho is a good indicator of the rest of a Vietnamese restaurant’s fare. If a spot uses prepackaged broths, they likely don’t care about putting out good food. If they make the broth from scratch and offer fresh-cut herbs, then...
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