Noodle soup
We have entered another culinary wonderland! As much as we enjoyed Cambodia, it was a tough place to be after being spoiled by the edible delights in Thailand – food in Cambodia was far more bland, less readily available and significantly more expensive (they also don’t have chocolate or icecream anywhere!). Vietnam, however, has been nothing but one great discovery after another!
I don’t have time for the type of food blog that this country deserves (I’ve also only been here for less than a week), but I did want to make note of the most prominent dish in Vietnam, pho.
Pho, for the uninformed, is noodle soup. Noodle soup sounds bland and is found all over Asia as a staple breakfast food (each country has certain variations), but in fact is is fact incredibly tasty and is one of our new addictions.The quintessential version is Pho bo, beef noodle soup. Like I said, it’s the standard breakfast food, but people eat it 24 hours a day – it is always available and always dirt cheap.
Your basic bowl of pho bo consists of flat rice noodles (in no way related to pasta, these are lighter than light), slices of braised beef, sliced white onion and chopped green onion in what is probably one of the most aromatic broths in the world. It comes in a huge steaming bowl (little to no wait time), a variety of garnishes are placed on your table and then the fun begins!
First, you add heaps of fresh bean sprouts onto the top of your soup.Then you tear up fresh basil and a cilantro-like herb, filling your bowl (to your taste) with the leaves. You squeeze a lime or two into the mix, then add fresh chopped chilies. After that comes scoops of various chili sauces; the most common seems to be a ground chili/sugar/chili oil combo, though the variety is half the fun! You then add fish sauce as needed (for salt) and fill a tiny dish with hoison sauce for dipping the pieces of beef into.
After mixing the contents of your bowls around with your chopsticks, it’s time to eat! With your soup spoon in your left hand and chopsticks in your right, it’s best to taste a bit of the broth (make any necessary adjustments), then get to work on some noodles. The best part of the whole ritual (this is not merely “eating”) is when your chopsticks have finished their job and it’s time to savour the spice-filled broth that awaits you at the bottom. There is always a free pot of Vietmanese tea on the table with glasses of ice, a perfect cooling accompaniment to the heat of the chilis.
At most, pho cost $1 and rumor has it that Saigon (where we are headed today) is full of fifty cent street pho, 24 hours a day. I will never, ever open a can of soup again.
Tags: food, noodle, pho, soup, Vietnam
allisonrae
November 3rd, 2008 at 1:08 am
[…] Original post by allisonrae […]
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:21 pm
OMG – I am starving and that looks so good!!
I can understand why you’ll never eat Campbell’s again (Like you did that anyway 🙂
Love you, miss you….Mom
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Your culinary experiences and descriptions make me so hungry!!!!! It’s a good think my brother drags you into the jungles for all the trekking…you two LOVE your food! LOL!
Hope you are having a good week…
Love
Juli
November 18th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Grandmas chicken soup was good too. but no chop sticks
love you grand ma and Leo