HL, being one of those unfortunate persons for whom cilantro tastes like soap, is always cautious with Vietnamese food, and usually ends up getting bun cha gio (rice vermicelli topped with spring rolls). Today, however, she ventured to try the rice plate with grilled sour meatballs (com bo nem nuong).
LO's appetite has grown to the point that she no longer wants to share off of parental plates. However, since she's just four years old and cannot read yet, her ordering process usually requires one of us to ask a series of diagnostic questions, like a triage nurse. Fortunately, the structure of Vietnamese menus lends itself to this. ("Do you want noodles, soup, rice, or soup with noodles?" "Rice." "Do you want chicken, pork, beef or shrimp?" "Beef." "Do you want grilled beef or shaken beef?" "Shaken beef.") So she ended up with the "shaken" (stir-fried) beef (com bo luc lac).
Meanwhile, I have a general rule of thumb: If the owners of a restaurant are proud enough of a particular food to put it into their name, that is what you should try first. And on a chilly winter's day, a steaming bowl of pho (aromatic beef broth with rice noodles), done properly, can hardly be beat. Since I wanted to sample as many parts of the cow as possible, I got the pho dac biet (pho with slices of rare eye round steak, slices of cooked eye round, flank steak, brisket, tendon and tripe).
Even before the meal came, I got several indications that it would be good. First, I ordered the hot coffee with condensed milk. It came, as it should, in a small drip brewer balanced atop a mug containing the sweetened condensed milk. Enjoying it requires patience, but if the timing of the kitchen is right, your coffee should be ready just as your meal comes out, and the coffee, with the condensed milk stirred in, should be strong yet sweet and satisfying. All was as it should be.
Then came the requisite platter of bean sprouts and herbs. Here was an ample sprig of basil and two long, sawtoothed leaves of Eryngium foetidum, aka ngo gai, culantro or shadon beni.
I was a bit more skeptical about the fact that I was only brought one slice of jalapeño pepper and a small, half-wedge of lime--usually I add more of each to my pho. But it soon became clear that this was not a matter of a stinginess, but a cook who knows what is needed to bring out the flavor of his or her creation. Just that squeeze of lime and the little bit of heat brought by steeping the pepper slice in the broth proved to offset the richness of the pho perfectly.
Then came the pho itself. A good pho must be the product of a lengthy cooking process that extracts the essence of beef along with a strong savor of star anise and other seasonings. I placed my nose directly into the steam and inhaled. There would be no need for extensive doctoring, no use of the hoisin or sriracha sauces on the table--just the full complement of herbs, and the bit of lime and hot pepper.
Another tricky part of pho, especially the dac biet, is getting the cook time right on all the different parts of the cow. The rare eye round must be carpaccio thin and yet must not lose its color at the top of the broth. The tripe, cooked eye round and flank must be tender, the tendon and brisket toothsome, all at the same time. My only--minor--complaint is that the tendon was cut a bit larger than I'm accustomed to.
All told, this was the best pho I have had in years. Now, in fairness to my former hometown, Vietnamese food is not its strong suit. The Vietnamese population of New York City is relatively small, compared to other East Asian nationalities, and relatively spread out. There are some small concentrations in the Bronx and Brooklyn, but not so much in Queens. (Anyone who has seen the traffic on any of the highways, or tried to navigate the subways to go from one "outer" borough to another, will have some sympathy for my tendency to stick to one the one borough.) In my former neighborhood of Flushing, the few Vietnamese restaurants were either Chinese- or Korean-owned. (Which stands to reason, as most of the population of Flushing is either Chinese or Korean.)
For whatever reason, none of them could get pho quite right. Now, certain similarities and connections between Korean and Vietnamese food cultures have been noted and remarked upon by others, but my best guess as to the differences is this: When you get a big bowl of beef soup in a Korean restaurant, say a Seolleongtang or Galbitang, the point is the beefiness. A good pho needs a strong savor of beef, but it also needs to serve as a good vehicle for the herbal accompaniments.
So the point of this excursus is that, as long as I had been living in New York my best Vietnamese food experiences were on trips out of town. So it is not entirely a surprise that I can say, "this was the best bowl of pho I've had in years." But more to the point, I cannot recall having had a better one. Maybe I have, maybe not. I've eaten a lot of pho in the last 16 years, ever since I discovered Vietnamese food one summer break in Nashville, Tennessee. But my first bowl of it in Maine is already a winner.
As for HL's and LO's meals: I didn't try LO's shaken beef, but she seemed to enjoy it (and especially enjoyed mixing her rice with the nuoc mam--fish sauce mixed with lime juice, sugar and other seasonings). HL let me sample one of her nem nuong, and it was also very good--highly recommended to anyone in the mood for a pork meatball.
Now I turn it over to you, readers: If you're from Maine, is there another local Vietnamese place I should make a point of trying? If you're reading this from elsewhere, do you have a favorite Vietnamese restaurant, in your hometown or some place else? And if you've never had Vietnamese food, and especially if you've never had pho, try it soon!
Pho Hanoi, 171A Ocean Street, South Portland.
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