Pho Your Information

What the Pho?

It’s Vietnam’s national dish. Vietnamese mothers cook it up at home, while street vendors in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City sell it as breakfast to the hungry public. Pho is the ultimate fusion dish. In fact, some believe the word “pho” (pronounced “fuh”) comes from the French “pot-au-feu.” Beef broth is not traditionally Asian, as the beast of burden is way too important to be cooked and eaten. But beef was what the Gallic colonists craved, and hence the Vietnamese pot-au-feu evolved.

A bouquet garni of cinnamon, star anise, bay leaf, cloves, fennel and/or black pepper (depending on the cook’s preference) subtly flavors the beef stock. And the onions and ginger for the broth are char-grilled first (similar to the French technique of adding roasted onion to pot-au-feu), an interesting phenomena that sets pho apart from other Asian noodle soups. Add a sprinkling of bean sprouts, sliced onion, scallions and Asian basil on the side, and the diner is free to garnish their bowl to their heart’s content.

There are pho fans all over the world - thanks to the Viet diaspora, pho restaurants have opened up all over the globe, offering inexpensive and delicious meals in Paris, Sydney, the West Coast and even the Midwest in the United States.

But what about Hong Kong? We’re just a few hours away from Hanoi, but somehow, it’s hard to find a decent bowl of pho. Could it be because our government decided to forcibly repatriate more than 110,000 Viet refugees back to ‘Nam, so no Vietnamese immigrants settled to open up authentic Viet restaurants in our city? A lot of local “Viet” restaurants use the softer Cantonese ho fun instead of the chewier Southeast Asian banh pho, while the raw herbs that are so prominent in authentic pho are often ignored as locals like their veggies flash-fried and piping hot. But fortunately, we no longer have to suffer MSG-laden Chinese noodles hiding under a slice of onion, masquerading as pho. The Viet scene is finally changing as the influx of Western culinary culture and their salads means that it’s increasingly common to munch on raw leaves. As a result, new Vietnamese establishments now authentically provide garnishes à la Viet, even rare herbs like culantro, or long cilantro.

What Makes a Good Bowl?

San Francisco Chef Dennis Wong oversees the award-winning restaurant Le Soleil. He’s Vietnamese-Chinese and grew up in Ho Chi Minh City, and says the key to a good bowl of pho is timing - the rice noodles have to be perfect, so that they retain their chewy texture without turning into mush.

And of course, the perfect stock has to be made from oxtail and bones for more than ten hours. “I bake the onions first so that it gives it sweetness. The essence of the broth has to be clean and naturally sweet. A lot of commercial vendors spend less time on their broth and just artificially flavor it with MSG and sugar, making diners thirsty afterwards. A good broth shouldn’t make one thirsty.“