Pho: Vietnamese noodle soup
I was inspired to write because we are having a new ingredient with our dinner tonight. Unfortunately neither asparagus nor stewed chicken and rice is weird enough for this blog. So, I decided to go with pho (pronounced like "fun" without the 'n'), a food we've eaten for years but is relatively unknown to most of our friends.
Pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup. Usually it has a variety of beef cuts (typically you can choose which cuts you want), rice noodles, onions, broth, and comes with condiments of bean sprouts, basil, lime and jalapenos. The broth takes a really long time to make and the taste varies wildly between recipes and places. It's a beef broth with things like charred onion and ginger, star anise, cardamom, coriander, fennel, and clove. I enjoy the ones that are more full-bodied. I've been to one place where it tasted like powdered soup packets.
The sheer size of servings are amazing, particularly when (at least in Oklahoma) a regular size bowl is about the size of a normal serving bowl and cost about 6-7 dollars. We tried several different places and the Asian District has some really good ones. The suburbs with higher Asian populations (like Moore) also have pretty good pho.
Pho places also have clear/glass noodles, which are a cellulose noodle, and dry style noodles without broth, rice platters, and vermicelli. Meats range from well done brisket, quail eggs, meatballs, to tripe and tendon. I often try a new variety of meats each time. John tends to get a rice platter, but has been known to get pho on occasion.
This is also a good place to mention the other two things that pho places typically have: bubble/boba tea and Vietnamese coffee.
I love both of these drinks. I have gone to pho places just to get boba tea because it is delicious. It's tea, either with non-dairy creamer or fruit flavor, or something similar to tea with caramel flavored tapioca balls (also called boba) or tiny fruit flavored gelatin blocks. John often gets taro milk tea with boba and I often get lychee tea/juice with lychee jelly. I love boba tea too, but I think I like lychee better.
Vietnamese coffee is very finely ground coffee that is brewed directly over a mug with sweetened condensed milk. After a while the coffee's brewed and in the cup mixing with the milk. I guess you could drink it straight but it's really, really strong. They also give you a tall glass filled with ice. You mix up the coffee and milk, pour it over the ice and drink it as the ice melts.
 |
| The Wikipedia image for Pho |
The sheer size of servings are amazing, particularly when (at least in Oklahoma) a regular size bowl is about the size of a normal serving bowl and cost about 6-7 dollars. We tried several different places and the Asian District has some really good ones. The suburbs with higher Asian populations (like Moore) also have pretty good pho.
Pho places also have clear/glass noodles, which are a cellulose noodle, and dry style noodles without broth, rice platters, and vermicelli. Meats range from well done brisket, quail eggs, meatballs, to tripe and tendon. I often try a new variety of meats each time. John tends to get a rice platter, but has been known to get pho on occasion.
This is also a good place to mention the other two things that pho places typically have: bubble/boba tea and Vietnamese coffee.
I love both of these drinks. I have gone to pho places just to get boba tea because it is delicious. It's tea, either with non-dairy creamer or fruit flavor, or something similar to tea with caramel flavored tapioca balls (also called boba) or tiny fruit flavored gelatin blocks. John often gets taro milk tea with boba and I often get lychee tea/juice with lychee jelly. I love boba tea too, but I think I like lychee better.
 |
| Wikipedia's boba tea picture |
 |
| This will keep you awake and hyper for a week, I think. |
I love all these foods, though we only get them a few times a year.
Comments
Post a Comment