Beef pho (pronounced to rhyme with "duh") is one of Asia's best-loved comfort foods. It is believed to have originated from northern Vietnam's Nam Dinh province, the addition of beef to the broth and rice noodle dish influenced by the French, and the name possibly coming from the feu (fire) of pot-au-feu.
Restaurants in Hanoi like to keep to the traditional, more salty combination of broth, meat and noodles. But when the recipe travelled south, along with the cross-country exodus that took place during the Indochina war, southern pretenders to the pho throne added a flourish of vegetables, herbs and spices, and sugar.
Outside its native country, pho is seen as Vietnam's national dish.
As the cliché goes, there are probably as many recipes as chefs, and every pho fan has the perfect taste in mind as they tuck into a bowl, mentally comparing and contrasting the tenderness of the beef, the beefiness of the broth, and the chewiness of the noodles to others they have eaten.
However, many foodies claim the success of the dish boils down to the soup, made with beef bones, marrow and meat to anchor its flavour, onions pre-charred to bring out their sweetness, spices such as ginger, star anise, cloves and cinnamon providing depth, sugar, and, of course, the ubiquitous Vietnamese fish sauce, nuoc cham.
One of Hong Kong's most popular Vietnamese restaurant chains is Nha Trang. It's rare to see Central's Wellington Street branch without a line of customers gazing through the window at the light-filled space, dominated by the high communal tables in the middle, smaller tables around the walls, and a harried army of servers.