Monday, September 1, 2008

So pho, so good

A visit to family friends Uncle Kin and Aunt Anissa led me to the suburbs of Sydney. I'd never ventured much beyond the airport before, but lots of good food to be had.

First stop, pho! We went to An Pho in Bankstown, reputed to be the best for pho amongst the Vietnamese community. It only serves pho: beef (raw, cooked, balls, tripe, brisket, tendons, or a mixture) or chicken. That's it. And extra bowls of the soup if you want it.

And you can see why they can sell just the bowl of soup by itself - definitely the best pho soup I've had in Sydney. Not overpoweringly sweet, or overpoweringly salty, or overpoweringly fatty. And the portions were enormous:

Apparently, the secret of their soup is dried silk worm (not opium as we were conjecturing). I continue to bow down to this most humble of dishes - I'm never going to be able to recreate it at home, it's going to remain a dish of some mystery to me. I don't really want to know how it's made, part of the fun is trying radically different versions and finding really good ones like this.

No comments: