A bunch of years back I used to work in San Francisco and on many a chilly summer day I would hike up to a tiny Vietnamese noodle shop on Broadway where I'd tuck into an enormous bowl of pho. It was cheap, cheerful and satisfying and everyone said - 'If you go to Vietnam - you gotta have pho'.
Fast forward to 2003 and I'm living in Saigon and traveling frequently to Hanoi - the home of pho - but my food obsessed collegue in Hanoi says there's more - and she's so right. Ok, the southern version of pho is great, but it didn't take long for me to start discovering a whole world or noodles 'beyond pho'.
Last month we headed to Hanoi for the first time in (?) 6 years for what turned out to be a 10 day assignment. 10 days and not a single bowl of pho and we ate so well. Check out our lastest Zester Daily piece for 4 must have un-pho-getable dishes if you hit the streets of Hanoi.
Beautiful photo. I do enjoy the insight into food and culture in these parts of the world. I'm off to read the article before my day gets going...
Posted by: Snippets of Thyme | September 09, 2011 at 08:23 PM
Yes David, I concur, a good bowl of Pho can be great yet there is so much more to be found in Vietnam and in my opinion...dishes with so much more complexity...Mi Quang being one of my favorites!
Posted by: Robert Danhi | September 09, 2011 at 10:09 PM
Snippets - Thanks! Not stopping for breakfast first? That's willpower.
Robert - Exactly. The central region of Vietnam (mi quang / cao lau) is a whole other ballgame. I want to dig deeper into that.
Posted by: Dave | September 10, 2011 at 09:13 AM
Saved as a favorite!
Posted by: Bulk SMS Reseller | September 12, 2011 at 07:49 PM