Any trip to Vietnam must, of course, include at least one pho stop. For this trip, we had the beef noodle soup at Phở Phượng 25. (The pho shop is just steps away from the Lunch Lady stall made famous by Anthony Bourdain.)
Cooking is done at the front of the shop with a large pot of churning beef soup kept on simmer. Steam from the pot gave the atmosphere around shop a slight beefy aroma.
This is the English menu. I am not sure if they have a Vietnamese menu or locals just say what they want in their pho.
I had the "large bowl all mixed beef types" for VND85,000 or SGD5. Considered premium pricing by local standards.
Hidden at the bottom was a mound of rice noodles. I actually wanted the "ultimate" with oxtail included but it was sold out.
One of the things I like about pho is the free flow of fresh leafy vegetables which I heaped onto my bowl 😄
The soup, the soul of the pho dish was rich, savoury beefy sweet. I didn't detect any spice flavour. Most of the flavour came from beef bone marrow. Some might find the soup a tad greasy.
Some locals squeeze chili sauce and / or hoisin sauce into their bowl of soup. I didn't use the sauces at all, not even as a dip as I like to taste my beef neat.
There were various cuts of beef such as this thin lean meat slice which was soft-chewy to the bite and tasted gently beefy.
Tendons don't have much flavour but I always want it in my pho because I like their spongy, gummy, chewy texture.
A couple of pieces of crunchy cartilage for the bite 😬
My favourite were these soft-tender fatty slices which tasted sweet along with slight beefiness.
They don't have beef shin which I would love and today, their oxtails were sold out 🙄 These are my top favourite cuts of beef for beef noodles.
I wandered across to the restaurant across the road and stumbled upon their whole roast calf. It looked fascinating and we couldn't resist ordering a small portion to taste.
Phở Phượng 25 allows customers to buy food from their neighbour though their neighbour won't allow the reverse 🤔
The roast calf turned out to be moist (not juicy) and a little chewy. Beefy flavour was very slight.
This was my first pho in Vietnam after more than a decade, so I can't really judge how it compares with other popular shops here. But, we enjoyed ourselves and like this pho that we had.
Written by Tony Boey on 24 July 2022
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