Monday, July 23, 2012

Pho Sure

Last night my family took a little road trip downtown to Chinatown, Philadelphia for a Vietnamese dinner.  After doing some research about the true definition of Pho, while reading reviews about different Pho restaurants on Zagat, Urbanspoon and Yelp, we decided on a small "hole-in-the-wall" restaurant called Pho Xe Lua, on the corner of 9th and Race street.  They specialize in big broth noodle bowls called "Pho".  I have been craving a big noodle broth soup for the past week and finally the night was here.  I decided on a bowl of seafood noodle soup.  The large, steaming hot soup came out in a matter of minutes.  The majority of the bowl was filled with a translucent tan salty broth, with a heaping amount of transparent noodles on the bottom of the bowl, as the rest of the soup floated on top with tiny chops of green scallions as well as all different types of seafood like soft red crab, crunchy orange shrimp and even outrageous creatures like purple octopus and squid!  (I gave those pieces to my dad :)). In front of me on the table, there was a plate full of different "add-ins" for the soup, white bean sprouts, basil leaves, circular cuts of bright green jalapeño peppers and a couple halves of juicy green limes.  I dumped a handful of bean sprouts, a couple basil leaves and three jalapeño peppers into my bowl and mixed them around with my soup.  To finish it off, I squirted the half of lime into my soup for a tangy, tart flavor.  I then picked up my large miso soup spoon with my left hand and creamy-white chopsticks in my right hand and dug in.  The spoon had a hollow bottom making it easy to scoop up the broth.  Each spoonful was better than the next, the spices of the chili pepper left a steaming imprint on the roof of my mouth.  The more I ate, the fuller I became, but the soup was soooo delicious, I just wanted to keep eating it.  I kept eating until I felt as though I was about to burst and pushed my still quarter-full bowl back in front of me.  I woke up yesterday dreaming of Pho, I went to bed satisfied and woke up this morning with one thought in my mind, "I have to get to the left-overs before anyone else!"

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