Going beyond pho to find Viet Nam's signature dish

Two Vietnamese dishes, pho and goi cuon, have been ranked among the World's 50 most delicious foods by the US network CNN. Last week, Viet Nam News asked its readers about their experiences with Vietnamese food and suggestions to promote it throughout the world. Here are some of the responses:

Endah Widiarti, Indonesian, Ha Noi

 

Pho is my jam in Ha Noi. I've been trying pho at different restaurants/eateries while living here for the past two years, and they are always different in taste.

I eat pho whenever I feel like it. It's hard to give advice on what is good or bad pho, but the best place I feel is the pho at the corner of Ly Quoc Su Street. They have one of the best dishes I've ever had - fine soup with fresh and tasty ingredients.

There are different prices for different varieties of pho - between VND30,000 (US$1.5) and VND50,000 ($2.5) per bowl, which I think is pretty fair. The quay, fried rice flour cake, is always crispy and delicious - the perfect accompaniment to their tasty bowls of pho. I just can't get enough of it!

This week: The International Monetary Fund has recently warned that the US and European countries are at risk of falling back into recession, causing the IMF to cut its global growth forecast for this year and next to 4 per cent. Gloomy economic news dominates headlines around the world almost daily. People across the global are cutting back on their spending and avoiding luxury habits such as eating out, travelling or shopping. Vietnamese people, especially low-income groups, are suffering from the hard punch of rising inflation. So, we want to know whether your lifestyle has had to change recently to adapt to rising prices and other costs or whether you are unaffected because of Viet Nam's low cost of living compared with other regional countries. We welcome your opinions. E-mails should be sent to: opinion.vietnamnews@gmail.com or faxed to 84-4-39332311. Letters can be sent to: The Editor, Viet Nam News, 11 Tran Hung Dao St, Ha Noi. All comments must be received by September 29.

If you're in a rush and want to grab something quick, I recommend the chain restaurants of Pho 24. Some of my friends call it the McDonalds of Phoû. You might fear that it is a kind of fast pho with tasteless soup and hard-to-chew beef,û but I disagree.

Yes, it's not the best quality pho in the world, but if you're looking for a quick fix, Pho 24 is the best choice. It offers a clean, nicely decorated, air conditioned ambience in which to enjoy the food. The portions are fine, a bit more expensive than the street variety, but good value in all.

Several kinds of pho have become my new favourites. Pho cuon, look a bit like spring rolls — sautéed beef and greens are simply rolled in a large square of pho noodle and served with a dipping sauce — but taste very different.

Pho chien phong, my recent discovery, includes a pillow-like pho shape with stirred beef and vegetables. These dishes are sold in Ngu Xa Street. Just try them and I guarantee you'll be back!

John MacDonald, Australian, Ha Noi

 

Pho is fine, but excuse me for saying it, I think it is highly over-rated, a bit like the Australian meat pie. There is a legendary quality to the dish, but I suspect it has more to do with the survival spirit of the Vietnamese than the dish itself.

I mean, everyone in Ha Noi seems to know of a particularly good pho restaurant, including one I eat at in Lo Duc Street on occasion. The reputation of some pho restaurants goes back a generation or two to the tough times during the American war. Maybe at that time, a dish of pho was a luxury, a staple dish, but still a luxury.

The key to good pho is obviously the soup stock, made, I presume, from good shin beef. Fine. But the noodles are a bland, factory made concoction – white, lifeless, tasteless and of little nutritional value.

In my next life, I would like to return as a pho maker and offer nice big chunks of soft beef cut from the bone in a delicate broth. Instead of just a sprinkling, I would like to add handfuls of chopped spring onion or other green herbs that abound in Viet Nam - according to the taste of the diner.

And the noodles, well, to look for any sort of star rating around the world, they would need to be made on the premises, but unfortunately, the art of making noodles in restaurants here has long disappeared. Not so in the Italian, Japanese and Chinese worlds. Even Australians are now learning to make their own noodles at home!

Quality noodles set a good restaurant apart from the rest. The flour is not bleached with chemicals to make it white – and there is still taste and chewability or, as the Italians say, the spaghetti is Al Dente, that is, firm enough to be cut with the teeth.

If I want to show guests a wonderful, healthy local dish I'll take them to another place down Lo Duc Street – for the best bun cha in town. Grantedly the bland, bleached noodles are again a problem, but the generous offering of mixed salad greens complement the slices of barbecued pork.

For me, I must confess, bun cha is the best in Ha Noi - a wonderful combination of roast meat, cool soup and salad leaves, with a small tray of home-made nem! Yum!

Nguyen Hoang Lan, Vietnamese, Ha Noi

 

Pho is one of my favourite dishes. I often go to a pho shop at Phung Hung Street in Hoan Kiem District with my family at the weekend. It is lovely, the best pho in Ha Noi. We often have to wait in a long line for a bowl in the morning. But it's worth the wait.

Not only me but members of my family all fall in love with pho. Even my two-year-old son became addicted the first time he tried. He even added pho to the list of simple words when he started to speak. Pho is now his favourite.

I sometimes try to prepare pho at home. Although it does not taste as good as the food served by special shops, I still love cooking it myself.

It is really interesting to cook the food, going to the market to choose fresh beef, noodle and spices. — VNS