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| - Just not as good as Saigon Royal in Calgary south, Watercress further east on 17th Ave SW, and certainly not as Pure Contemporary Vietnamese Kitchen on 8th Ave. SW, settled into a fairly large bowl of bun bo hue after having asked for pho bun hue, a very different dish.
After squeezing lime, added basil leaflets and sprouts from a wee mountain, tasted the fine mild broth. Was okay, but mild is not necessarily pleasing. So added one generous squeeze of heat and two of brown sauce in my hapless attempt to approximate flavours that are characteristic of good-great Vietnamese noodle and sandwich houses.
***
And herein is the give-away: the best Viet noodle houses in Asia and Canada do NOT put big plastic bottles of sauce on their tables!!!
They are absent.
The furthest they go is perhaps add a shallow little dish of dipping sauce to enhance only certain portions of an artful meal!
Therefore ... in pho, the kitchen devises special, full and rich broth, and ingredients are at such a high standard in flavour and texture that added sauces are unnecessary! The kitchen crafts your meal to please their gifts and their guests!
And that, good readers, distinguishes a chef from a short-order cook! And great pho from a dumbed-down lazy one.
***
As for this pho, the beef that came in the form of thin slices of brisket, chunks of sausage, and tripe (not in the menu) was okay, but short in supply. And the small quantity of over-cooked white round noodles added nothing to this soup! I guess the mountain of fresh bean sprouts were to replace them? What a drag.
Serving a chorus of white faces, Pho Huong is obviously catering to a crowd who know their style of 'cuisine,' but for the most part likely don't know about the real deal on the streets of Vietnam's cities and towns.
The plus side?
The prices are lower than most other places, but that could also result on the downside re. what we go to a restaurant for!
Decor pleasant enough, and tables arranged with discreet distance from others makes it possible to have a visit even when busy on a warm Tuesday evening.
Just average, I won't bother to return.
Please do yourself a favour, foodies, and check out Pure Contemporary Vietnamese Kitchen on the fringe of the downtown core? Now THAT pho and Pham's other dishes should be great!
Or on your next trip to Asia, do a month in Vietnam and across the country do the street scene thoroughly to get what really good pho is all about. The good houses dare not dumb down their creations!
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