Last week I mentioned that Pho (Vietnamese beef noodle soup) is one of my favorite cold weather foods. I love the warm, anise-scented broth next to the cool crunch of the fresh bean sprouts and herbs. However, it's one of those dishes that I think of as restaurant-only. I've never attempted to make it, mostly because I know the broth is fairly labor-intensive.
The level of work that it required didn't scare away Brys from Cookthink (it appears that he rarely shies away from complex cooking projects, a trait that endears his blogging to me) and it looks like he created something tasty and close to authentic (except, where's the star anise? *). For those of you who have never made consommé, his narration and pictures will help you navigate those tricky waters.
Me, I'm just looking forward to the next time I can get down to South Philly for a steaming bowl of Pho.
*Even though I read Brys' post three times, I missed the star anise until a commenter pointed it out to me. My mistake!
Up until, oh, about six to eight months ago, I stubbornly refused to eat Vietnamese food. If everyone else in the party felt like Vietnamese, I'd surrender, but not quietly, and would make it clear throughout the whole meal how much I hated what we were eating. I don't like cilantro, I don't like its combination with lime juice (which is completely ignored when eating Mexican food, of course), and I mist certainly did not like fish sauce.
However, after all that "hmph!"-ing, I must shamefully admit now that I am quite addicted to pho. There is something about the steaming hot broth that is so paradoxically refreshing in the summer, and yet so warm and comforting in the fall and winter. Though I am not afraid of beef, I never order pho with any of the sliced rare beef combinations. It might have to do with the fact that the places I've eaten pho are always tiny little dives. But even if we were in the King's castle eating pho, i'd still order the tofu pho because I love it.
We posted about Pho Fever around this time last year, and appears that since then the pho site has added a forum where fans can discuss that ambrosial mixture of beef, broth, noodles and herbs. The forum isn't exactly booming, but there are about 50 users, and a healthy banter about pho recipes. With any luck, more people will check it out and share their thoughts. The site also has a sparsely updated pho blog, but for my pho blogging needs, I think I'll stick with the slightly more current Pho King.
If you enjoy Tony Bourdain's adventures into exotic cuisines and like watching him experience things that we don't normally get to see on a day-to-day- basis (iguana? cobra heart?), then you've got to check out the most recent post from Deep End Dining's Eddie Lin. He goes to Little Saigon in Orange County, CA to meet a cookbook author and her father, and instead of simply enjoying the simplicity of a bowl of pho, tries pho topped with a bull's organ, and were' not talking about internal organs here, folks. Eddies' pho had bull's penis.
And it doesn't just stop there. His dining companions also encourage him to try pre-mature egg yolks (not premature fertilized eggs, which he has eaten before), and snails with bananas.
Hey, pho isn't just about noodles and broth anymore.
There's nothing like a bowl of hot, steamy Vietnamese beef noodle soup, or
pho, on a cold winter's day. It's my choice over chicken noodle soup or even my childhood fave, cream of tomato, when
I'm sick. The spice clears the sinuses, the bean sprouts, Thai basil and mint brighten my palate, and the broth warms
the cockles of my heart. This pho comes from the excellent Portland, Oregon Pho Hung.
We 
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