Pho

After having eaten some Chinese and Japanese meal these past days, I wanted to eat a Vietnamese dish. As the weather forecasted some drop in temperature and rain for today, I thought to cook Pho for tonight's dinner since I usually like to eat Pho when the weather is a bit colder. So in the morning, I took various beef meats out of my freezer as I planned to cook it in the afternoon. However, there was no rain nor any drop of temperature today. Since all the various beef meats were already all unfrozen, this leaves me no choice but to cook the Pho dish today.

For people, who do not know what is Pho, here is a brief explanation:
Pho is a famous Vietnamese beef noodle soup, served in a bowl with a specific cut of white rice noodles in clear beef broth, with slim cuts of beef (steak, fatty flank, lean flank, brisket, meatball and even tendon).

To cook Pho, I use the top secret recipe that my mom taught me couple years ago. She always told me that her recipe for Pho is the authentic Vietnamese way to cook and not much people know about it. While I will not take everything my mom says for granted, I have no doubt in her words regarding this authentic recipe. Having travelled a lot around the world, I have had the occasion to eat Pho at several Vietnamese restaurants in Europe (Brussels, The Hague, Paris, Antibes, Cannes, Monaco), North America (Toronto, Houston, Pittsburgh, New York, Madison, Chicago, few island of Hawaii and few cities in New Jersey) and Asia.
I have also seen several recipe for this dish throughout the internet. Personally I think the majority of the Pho recipes on internet do not taste the authentic Pho, and at times, I even wonder why some people post those mediocre recipes. Of course, there are exception but even those exceptions do not meet my standard. I have seen some Pho recipes on internet where the quality of the recipes is OK to eat but I personally would not eat those "OK" Pho. One of my friends used to say that I am picky and having too high standard, but after tasting the Pho I made, he always judges the Pho from any Vietnamese restaurant using my Pho as the benchmark ! It is quite funny to see.

Although the Pho my mom taught me is already the best one I have ever tasted, I still wanted to make it even better. So last year, I have improved her authentic recipe by adding just one simple ingredient, which I could only find in The Netherlands so far. My friend says that my Pho tastes slightly better than the one my mother makes as it is a bit more tasty than the one from my mom. If my dad would be still alive and hear this, he would laugh and says "of course, the student should always become better than the master otherwise there is no improvement in our society."
It is pity that my dad would never be able to taste my Pho cooking. I believe he would love it and say something funny to tease back my mom, which will make me laugh.

So the above picture is a bowl of Pho that I have cooked today from 2 pm to 8 pm. With this amount of cooking time, you can imagine how tasteful is the soup base as the flavor of all the ingredients has been slowly cooked and well dispersed into the soup.
Although the weather was still as warm as yesterday, I still savored every bite of the Pho. I particularly enjoyed this dish with a light breeze coming through my patio door.
Every time my friends eat Pho at my house, they would ask me this top secret recipe. I usually feel sorry to tell them that I cannot give it to them since my mother has passed this on to me and I would only pass this top secret recipe only on to very close friends that I consider as my family. So far, I have passed it on to a very limited amount of close friends who have unconditionally supported me throughout all these years.
Although I cannot disclose my top secret Pho recipe, I would like to recommend you the following two best places to eat Pho:
1) Restaurant Tau Bay in Houston
(8150 SW Fwy, Ste T, Houston, TX 77074. Neighborhoods: Sharpstown, Westwood)

2) Pho 14 in Paris
(129 Avenue de Choisy 75013 Paris 13)

Pho at those restaurants taste good, almost as good as the one my mother or I make. If I have to choose between Tau Bay and Pho 14, I think I prefer to the Pho from Tau Bay as it tastes slightly superior. Furthermore Tau Bay restaurant is more clean than Pho 14 restaurant and the waiters at Tau Bay are much more pleasant.

One thing to note, throughout this post, I have written Pho in a simplified version without any accent as all my friends know the name of this dish by "Pho". However the correct way to write this dish is Phở. 
If you are not living in Houston or Paris, then I would really encourage you to find a good Vietnamese restaurant nearby your area and just give it a try !