For love of pho: Vietnam’s rice noodle broth attracts zealots

It’s hot, it’s salty, it’s umami, it’s got texture — it’s delicious.

Close your eyes and, with a little imagination, you can be anywhere. With a few sensory props, anyway. I had basil and star anise in my nostrils, the zing of MSG on the tongue, the drone of locomotives and massive extraction systems in the background … Just for a few delightful moments I was in a Ho Chi Minh City railway station, killing time waiting for a train north to Hanoi. A delicious little springtime daydream.

I’d been talking to a mate who lived in Vietnam for many years and has made it his mission to find great pho (pronounced “fur”) ever since moving back to Australia. This is not unusual; Vietnam’s rice noodle broth attracts zealots. Hence an entire issue of US food quarterly Lucky Peach dedicated to the subject earlier this year. “Believe it or not,” my mate said during a discussion on a subject only true pho aficionados would understand, “there’s a place at Spencer Street Station that does great pho.”

So there I was, at Spencer Street Station, with an hour to kill. It was just after midday and … there it was. A not particularly promising array of wet and rice dishes displayed in a bain marie and some backlit pictures on the back wall promoting a limited selection of Vietnam’s best-known staple. Delicious Asian Cuisines, as the business is discreetly known, doesn’t put much effort into what Todd Sampson or Russel Howcroft might call “brand identity”. My mate hadn’t been able to tell me the restaurant’s name, and he’s in advertising. But I figured: how many places at Spencer Street Station could sell pho?

I asked for the tripe, pointing, as one does, at the picture above. I like pho with bible, or book, tripe. Too good to be true. “Sorry, no tripe today. Have number four. Very good.” It was no lie: a lovely broth, fresh rice noodles the right kind of soft, the usual accessories (bean shoots, basil, chilli, hoi sin, etc) and slices of lemongrass-chargrilled chicken, which had imparted a lovely, fine charred herb paste “speckle” into the soup. It was a truly exceptional $10.50 interlude. Good pho usually is.

“At the end of the day,” says chef/restaurateur/co-editor of Lucky Peach David “Momofuku” Chang in his pho issue, “the reason why we love pho is because it’s hot, it’s salty, it’s umami; it’s got acid, it’s got heat and texture from all the stuff you add in as you’re eating.” And Chang reckons pho is the future of noodles in America. “It’s simple to make, but not that simple. It’s easier to make than ramen; it’s lighter than ramen. It uses less meat, so it’s less resource-intensive, but still very, very delicious.”

Because the accessorising is so much a part of the fun and ritual — the chilli, lemon, herbs, fish sauce, crunchy brown stuff the Vietnamese call “sate sauce” — pho is something most of us would go out for. Indeed, I have gone out for it many, many times, including places in Ho Chi Minh City you could only call questionable. I generally found that the more questionable the venue, the better the soup. But you can do it at home, and most Asian groceries sell pre-portioned pho spice packets with most the stuff you need to add to your stock — anise, cloves, cinnamon — to get a generic, familiar broth happening, to which you simply add your noodles and garnishes.

But really, why bother? Find your local, inhale, listen to the Vietnamese banter, close your eyes. And let your imagination run wild.