My wife and I were invited to dinner the other night by our friends Hal and Dawn to try pho for the first time.  What is pho?  For those that don’t know (I was one until recently), it’s a Vietnamese soup, what many American’s might compare to beef noodle soup.

All I knew going into the meal was that most Americans likely pronounce pho wrong.  Pho isn’t pronounced with a long “o” like foe; it’s pronounced more like “fuh”.  However, I go back and forth myself about these things; we’re not speaking Vietnamese here, so, in English, maybe it’s ok to call it pho with a long “o”.  We don’t carefully pronounce other dishes, even European dishes.  I’m not trying to be disrespectful; it’s just not that big of a deal what you call it.  If you want to get caught up on the name, call it “Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup”.  Pho is quicker, though (and people will likely know what you mean when you say it with a long “o”).

Pho is apparently a frequent meal for Hal and Dawn’s family (they have five kids, too).  Everything was about ready when we showed up, with fresh ingredients and additives to the pho on the table, and a pot of beef broth on the stove.

Pho is a bit different than what I think of as soup in that a lot of the ingredients are added raw instead of cooked for hours in the soup.  The additives available (and typical for pho) were:

• Sriracha for heat
• Lime juice (or limes) for acidity
• Hoisin sauce for sweet
• Cilantro
• Basil
• Bean sprouts
• Green onion

Rice noodles were added to the beef broth to soften, and bowls were filled around the table for everyone to doctor up as they wished.  What I liked about this is that each person decides how they want their pho instead of trying to suit all tastes with the same soup.  If I wanted my soup spicier, I could add some more sriracha sauce… a bit crunchier, more bean sprouts go in.

I really liked the soup!  The spices in the broth seem a bit odd, with cinnamon, cardamon, ginger, coriander, fennel, cloves and star anise.  With the additions at the table, I ended up with a bowl of soup that was really balanced between lots of different flavors, none of them standing out on their own.  My wife liked it well enough she wants to make it soon, too. It was also really nice to be invited to dinner, especially when that meant we got to enjoy our first pho with good friends, which, as I’ve said before, makes any food better.

Of course, when I do make it, I’ll probably try to do as much as I can on the grill… But, if you’ve read any of my blog before, you might have guessed that already.

For those of you that have had pho, I’d like to hear differences from how our friends prepare it from the way you have it.  Differences don’t mean one or the other is wrong; they just mean they’re different!

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