A Steaming Bowl of Pho!
During a past trip to London with my mate Andrew, a good friend who has an inquisitive palate as I do, we decided to have a bite to eat before our return to Southampton. We had decided it was going to be either Vietnamese or Peruvian and after some deliberation we went with the Vietnamese option and headed for Pho Cafe in Wardour Street.
Pho Cafe specialises in the wonderful Vietnamese noodle soup called Pho (pronounced “fuh”). Pho is a dish made up of noodles with thin slices of raw beef, you can then add chilli, coriander, bean sprouts and Thai basil to personal taste. A rich beef stock is then added which cooks through the beef and warms the noodles. In Vietnam the same stock would be used throughout the day, so the later in the day, the more intense is the stock.
I had Pho Tai which is the classic described above, while Andrew had Pho Bo Vien, where the thinly sliced beef is replaced with meat balls. I can understand why they say Pho is a Vietnamese national obsession, it is full of flavour. I could quite easily have it for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
To accompany our Pho’s we had Goi Xoai, a spicy green mango salad, accompanied by pork, dried shrimp and peanuts. It was the most refreshing salad I had ever eaten, it was delightful.
I look forward to visiting a Pho Cafe again sometime and try some of their other wonderful dishes, maybe even sample a cup of rare weasel coffee!
