Very much looking forward to visiting this. Good press here.
“I Love Phở is an exhibition combining the recipes and poems of six Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese artists. Opening on Friday 22 February, the exhibition explores the Vietnamese beef rice noodle soup dish, phở, an integral part of Vietnamese cultural heritage.”
I’m starting a map of all the Pho restaurants in Melbourne. As far as I know it will be the only one. I will be updating all the previous posts with map info in good time.
Check back at the Melbourne Pho Map page soon.
I was delight to recently discover a sign sticky taped to the window of a local Vietnamese restaurant. It proudly introduced the arrival of a new dish – my favourite dish. This was great news. I didn’t have high hopes, but went down to try it out. You know what? It wasn’t bad at all. It was certainly not of the quality to be found further afield, but if I’m ever in need of an emergency Pho fix, I know where to go.
Green Field - (03) 9380 8222 - 376 Sydney Road Brunswick
Pho Hoang Noodle House - (03) 9558 4064 - 36 Buckingham Ave Springvale 3171
Springvale Road is the worst Road to drive, anywhere in the world. I think you’ll agree. No matter what time of day your driving, the experience is always the same, pure hell! Today was no different. At least we had a reward at the end of the line.
Behind the low lying shops on Springvale Road, Springvale, is a maze of back streets and under cover malls. Inhabiting this are dozens of eateries and food vendors. Thai, Cambodian, Chinese, and Vietnamese. I lost count but there are at least six Pho shops with in a block of each other. King Whale Seafood Restaurant looms large over the district, in all it’s canary-yellow-double-story-car-park splendor. King Whale is penciled in for another time.
We tried Pho Hoang. This is a small, mirror walled, very worn tabled establishment, with a steady stream of soup punters. (I don’t think they get many tourists like us out here.) They do soup and only soup, but with many variations. Bun Bo Hue was on the list, as was Bo kho. There was also a Cambodian soup.
The quality was good with flavorsome stocks, fine noodles, ample accompaniments and the largest plate of salad stuffs I’ve seen anywhere.
It was well worth the battle of Springvale Road. We’ll be back.
Happy birthday Asha! (fellow noodle hunter)
Midmorning breakfast at the Sussex Centre food hall. The lunch rush hadn’t kicked in, but vendors were still busily handing out a steady flow of product. Due to the early hour, E and I decided to try the pho stall, Siagon Pho. We’ve sniffed out four Pho joints around Chinatown and three of them have Siagon in the title. Doesn’t look like well see any Pho Bac on this trip.
This particular Siagon Pho sells a range of rice dishes and offers noodle soup as combination or rare meat. I expect the combination would include a few bits of offal. Our rare beef was of a good standard, there was plenty of them being sold. I noticed a number of staff from other stalls eating here.
The proprietor seemed like a nice chap. I asked him what he thought difference between Southern and Northern Pho was. He noodled (nodded) enthusiastically as if this was a question he had often asked himself. He pulled out a strange electric tennis racket and swiped at a fly. It disintegrating in a zap of electronic flash. E and I ducked. “Sugar!” he said, and went on to tell me that Southerners like to add sugar to the stock in the cooking faze. He also said there was a particular spice that was integral but could not find the words in English, (maybe Star Anise). He told me to go to Cabramatta for pho Bac, I doubted we’d get there this trip. We finished our soup, he stalked more insect pray. Countless bowls of Pho were dished out.
The Sussex Centre food hall has a large variety of food stalls and a bar! There’s Korean BBQ, Malasian noodles, Chinese BBQ/noodles, Japanese Ramein joints and a whole lot of other stuff. I doubt there would be a dish over $10. Our Pho was $7.50.
Sussex Centre Food hall - 401 Sussex Street Sydney
It’s fun to take kids to eat pho. Restaurants seem to be really accommodating, (well I haven’t been kicked out of one yet). There’s alway kids chairs and no one seems to get too upset when kids do kids things. Toby and I took our girls for a soup today. Unlike Toby and I, they didn’t seem that interested in the pho, more busy coping each other doing naughty things. They did put back a bit of rice vermicelli though.
Phong Son - CNR Swanston & Lonsdale Streets
It was good to drink some Chinese tea late in the afternoon. It was after the lunch rush, so I had some space to let my mind wonder… and then my pho arrived 15 seconds later.
It was ok. I felt it was a little watered down. I had to pad it out with Hosin sauce. Not really up to Mekong standards. There was lots of other stuff on the menu though, so I don’t suppose they were pretending it was their specialty. The chairs were really ugly, but the people were friendly.
Afterwards, I went for a scout around town looking for future lunch locations. I’m going to try to get to a couple of chinese noodle places up on Russell Street. One of them has the brazen title, Noodle King. We’ll see about that hey!
Phở is definitely a magnificent hangover remedy. Sporting a ripper this morning - the noodle unit headed out for Vietnamese noodle soup. We ended up at Phở Dzung again. I’m sure they’re getting sick of me. I could see it in the waiters eyes as he dragged a 25kg sack of Monosodium Glutamate across the dining area floor. Any other establishment may have done this discretely, here it was done with pride. Sorted my hangover that’s for sure!
I returned to Pho Dzung in town this week. Mainly because of Millie’s reminder of how good the rare beef Phở is.
The cross section of people that go to these places is wonderful. Everyone is here, particularly in the city, office workers, students, and apparently a large contingent of blogging folk. There’s only one reason to come to Phở Dzung though. It’s not about decor. There is no pretensions to style or elegances. The staff are not there to wait. They are more like traffic wardens. It’s totally about the dish, or variations on it, Phở! They serve a great example of it here, and the large daily crowd slurps it up.
It’s great to watch the different people here, as you have a few cups of weak Chinese tea. Hard to linger though. Eating your soup is all you can do, before you sense it’s time to vacate. Every seat is in demand.
Jeez, I wish I could work out the key for the funny “o” in Phở.
