Phõ Minh

I have never ordered a large serve and never seen the bottom of my bowl. But, I have often sat in amongst ten people in their middle community table and watched in amazement as tiny slim Australian women of Asian heritage demolish huge bowls of pho. My envy of their genes and slimness, is, I hope not too obvious.

The two favourites beef pho with tripe and tendon and their oxtail are so good, shameful as it might be, there has never been the temptation to experiment into other areas of their menu. It’s all in the broth and I am certain it is their very popular oxtail that is the reason for the superiority of their broth which is rich and meaty without a trace of the tell-tale Maggi stock flavouring that, believe it or not, can be bought on Hanson road in 1kg containers…WTF!

So, beef with tripe and tendon…without saying the plate of bean shoots, coriander, a lot of Thai basil and a skimpy [this is not complaining] lemon wedge, a little dish of fresh chilli and another of raw onion that has been soaked in cold water. There are also condiments on the table of chilli, hoisin/barbecue and soy sauce. I have never been able to establish why they don’t used the honeycombe tripe and sometimes the tendon can still be a little crunchy for my liking and then there’s masses of finely sliced, incredibly tender beef, rice noodles and that absolutely scrumptious broth. At a guess, I don’t expect there is a need to tell any of our readers how this works but just in case. Drop the bean shoots, about half,  into the broth, squeeze out the lemon wedge, rip off the leaves from the coriander and basil and add them to your bowl and push them under with your chopsticks. Now, unless you are a very foolish person do not add more than five or six slices of chilli, mix them around and let them infuse and taste the broth before you start adding more. No one has ever been able to explain to me which chilli they use, and I think the lack of freshness, slight fermentation adds to the heat. Add half of the onion and the remainder when you are a little way in. I try not to think about where the beef comes from. One of my favourite pastimes is to trawl Asian and Chinese grocers and especially systematically go through the intriguing contents of their freezers. The bigger stores sell mountains of finely sliced frozen beef that comes from everywhere but Australia…..maybe best not to ask?