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| - The restaurant is airy and bright. I came here for lunch with a group of 7 people, and we were served in plenty of time.
I had the large bowl of Pho vegetarian soup (not really a Pho soup in the strictest sense), and it was super large and very, very tasty.
Pho-ndamentalism is not relevant to Pho. My ordering a vegetarian version is a minor variation for a dish that has evolved a lot since its humble origins in the early 1900s to today, when it's considered one of the world's 50 tastiest dishes. Like most fine cuisines, it comes from the poor and the streets, in this case the streets of northern Hanoi, where it was sold on streets to factory workers before and after they began their shift.
There's a myth that so-called "ethnic" foods, especially in the "timeless lands" of the Far East go back to the mists of time, but the reality is that most national and ethnic food traditions come from the late 1800s and early 1900s, before corporations began inventing processed cuisines after the 1920s.
The pre-corporate national and ethnic cuisines were formed out of the fusion of many traditions and circumstances -- a process I call "folk fusion" to distinguish it from inventions of formally trained chefs over the past 25 years or so. And folk fusion foods have continued to evolve -- that is the fate of real food traditions.
Fusion is an important theme of my book, The No-Nonsense Guide to World Food, and it is a good theme to watch for at Pho My Duyen, where Pho will experience many changes, under the influence of nearby FoodShare and Dufferin Grove enthusiasts, and the rich multiculturalism of the Bloor Dufferin area.
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