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Vietnamese cuisine of the last 200 years is a unique combination of Asian and French cooking. Of Asian origin is the importance of vegetables in the daily diet, and the habit of chopping up food before preparation.
Accordingly chopsticks are used at the table. French, for example, is the base of most Vietnamese soups, actually a consommé. Also French are many terms in cooking. The most common spice, lemon grass, is referred to in Vietnam as citronelle; and an indigenous paste of mashed shrimp, black pepper, and coriander is called pate.
Vietnamese cuisine of the last 200 years is a unique combination of Asian and French cooking. Of Asian origin is the importance of vegetables in the daily diet, and the habit of chopping up food before preparation. Accordingly chopsticks are used at the table.
French, for example, is the base of most Vietnamese soups, actually a consommé. Also French are many terms in cooking. The most common spice, lemon grass, is referred to in Vietnam as citronelle; and an indigenous paste of mashed shrimp, black pepper, and coriander is called pate.
However, Vietnamese cuisine differs in one aspect from French cuisine: it uses hardly any oil. But it also doesn’t boil most of the foods; the most common preparation is to stir-fry. Meats are less important in Vietnamese cuisine than are fish and particularly seafood. There is an immense abundance of shrimp in Vietnam. Among meats the Vietnamese prefer beef over pork because pork is often too fatty for their taste.
It was mentioned that the Vietnamese use a soup base similar to the French consommé. However, in Vietnamese cuisine noodles are often added to the soup. The resulting “noodle consommé” is called Pho bo.
Pho, has been around for approximately 100 years. In Toronto, at a Pho joint, you can easily find more than 17 different varieties. It is extremely popular and can be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Pho, traditionally, is the beef broth soup with noodle, brewed in star anise and burnt onion, with bones and tendons and tripe, sprinkled with green onion and basil on top. Chicken, and Seafood also make popular substitutes. My buddy Terry swears by the Hot & Sour seafood Pho that’s served at a few establishments in the city.
The secret for delicious Pho soup is tasty soup broth. Tasty soup broth makes *Pho * noodles soup tastier. Ideally to uses a lots beef and chicken bones, exactly right amount of herbs and spices and simmering (low heat) overnight. The longer the soup broth cooks, the better the Pho is.
The secret to trying an enjoying Pho is to start off light. First timers should enjoy Pho with a lean tender cut of beef.. The steak or brisket is slightly cooked by the boiling broth to the perfect “medium” by the time the bowl reaches your table. What you get is a mixture of a naturally flavored, low-calorie, delicious soup with the choicest slices of brisket,, Your bowl of soup is usually accompanied with fresh coriander leaves, bean sprouts, hot peppers, and lime wedges
Once you’re used to the texture and taste of Pho, try adding a twist to your order, with some fatty flank or tendon. Fatty flanks have a thin layer of fat like bacon, which makes them tastier than you can imagine. You’ll love it.
The Adventurers who want the most “unusual” and yet, the tastiest of meats, will favour the tendon, tripe, fatty flank, and crunchy flank Phos. I’ve yet to attain such courage.
Here are a few of my Favourite places to try Pho,
Pho Hoa
4271 Sheppard Ave. East, Scarborough
Tel: (416) 293-3236
3636 Steeles Ave. E., #110 & 111, Markham
Tel: (905) 305-9709
Golden Turtle
125 Ossington Avenue
416-531-1601
Pho 88 Vietnamese Restaurant
325 Bamburgh Cir
(416) 497-8899
PHO 88 Vietnamese Famous Beef Noodles Soup
610 Gerrard E Toronto
(416) 778-7888
Pho Saigon
1921 Eglinton Av E
(416) 759-5999
Pho Hung Restaurant
200 Bloor St W
(416) 963-5080
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