Vietnam Beef Noodles

Being in Ho Chi Minh for almost a month has made me fallen in love with their "national" food. I'm sure everyone knows what Vietnam is popular for. Besides its spring roll and French bread, Vietnam is also most popular for its beef noodles, which is known as "pho", pronounced "fur" with a down accent.

This is in Phumingham

This store is in the city itself.. Different right?


Cooking for you too see!




Different kind of beef and veggies!

With my mum being so fussy with Vietnamese food, the only place that I'm allowed to venture is the famous chain store, "Pho 24". Ho Chi Minh is full of this kinda chain stores which are differentiated with numbers! I'm not sure how many different stores they have but both Pho 24 and Pho 2000 are the popular ones. Ones that suit my "high class" mum. She's super paranoid with the food here. Even after living here for almost a year, my mum still makes sure we don't eat any street food for fear of food poisoning. I hate it though, how else are you gonna truly taste the culture of that country if you don't eat their street food?

It clean right?

Its like eating the "Chicken Rice Store" in Midvalley and not touching the real authentic chicken rice in those hawker stalls!

But ah well.. no point arguing with her. I shall venture out myself next time if I have the opportunity.

For the time being though, Pho 24 is sufficient enough to have a taste on what Vietnamese beef noodles taste like. At least its from Vietnam itself and not those from California. >.< Terrible!



I really like their noodles though. Its half way between Kuew Tiao and Mee Hoon. To put it simple, its a little bit thinner than our normal Kuew Tiao, also known as Ho Fun. I tell you, we Asians are fantastic in making noodles. We have soo many kinds of different noodles that I myself get confuse trying to explain to a fellow foreigner what our noodles are!

One thing about Pho 24 is that its clean. And their menu has English translation. It seems that its even opening branches in Singapore too. I wonder when they're coming to Malaysia.

They have all kinds of beef. Beef fillet, beef flanks.. I don't really know the difference myself. All I know is beef fillet is solid meat and beef flanks has a bit of fat in it. Me like! =)

Beef flanks!

They will serve with a plate of raw vegetables which includes various weird leaves and bean sprout. I only like their bean sprout. My mum always try and ask them to cook it for a while to make it softer, if she succeeds in communicating with them.

Its kinda funny communicating with them. Their "England" is as good as my Vietnamese, which is not existing at all. So you can imagine how we communicate. All I can say is.. one needs A LOT of patience to succeed!

One thing I love about Vietnam is their abundance of chili! Oh my god.. their chili is absolutely fabulous!!! Super spicy! For my noodles, I love putting a lot of pepper and a 3 or 4 chilis inside. Just soaking it inside is enough to make me fly up the ceiling.. I don't even have to eat it.. And I can tell you for sure that I can eat spicy food!

Oooh.. I'm gonna miss this the most when I go back to California.