Going far beyond pho
In Vietnam, they eat soup for breakfast.
Not just any soup, mind you, but pho (pronounced "fuh"): highly aromatic beef stock poured over a tangle of rice noodles and garnished with fresh herbs, bean sprouts and sliced meat. Native to Hanoi, in the north, its popularity has spread to street stalls throughout the country.
In Toronto, where half the year is cold and gray, we've never warmed to the idea of broth for breakfast. (Campbell's Canada once contemplated opening a chain of drive-through soup restaurants, but nothing came of it.) However, we have warmed to pho. I myself have eaten countless bowls of the stuff around town, always grateful for a meal that costs $5 and thoroughly satisfies.
But there's more to Vietnamese soups than beefy pho. A sampling of GTA restaurants turned up exquisite broths based on lamb, chicken and shrimp. Like their better-known cousins, these soups are meals in themselves; throw in a cooling fruit smoothie (see sidebar) and dinner still comes in under $10.
It doesn't get much better than the curry chicken soup with rice noodles at Saigon Palace (454 Spadina Ave. at College St., 416-968-1623). My future husband introduced me to it soon after I met him. I've been madly in love with them both ever since.
Saigon Palace is a brightly lit, bustling Chinatown fixture. Like many of the Vietnamese restaurants I visited, the chief decorative touches are plastic tropical fruit and Buddha statues (at least four here). Also in common: a tray on each table holds condiments — chili, fish, soy and hoisin sauces are standard — plus plastic chopsticks, Chinese spoons, Western cutlery and paper napkins. You set your own place.
The soup ($5.50), called pho cari ga, is a sensory revelation. When I first tasted it, it was unlike any curry I'd known: thick and vibrant yellow, the sting tempered by coconut milk and mild noodles. I particularly crave it after long airplane journeys, when its silky heat restores both body and soul. I know I'm not the only fan: During my last fix, I overheard a man at the next table sigh deeply and pronounce: "This broth is making my day."
Place your order by writing "No. 22" on the check; you won't wait long. When it comes, the monochromatic soup doesn't look like much, but the smell is intoxicating. There's a whole chicken leg, flabby skin and all, afloat on the surface; lurking underneath are bean sprouts and medium-width rice noodles. It's a study in sunny, Provencal yellow, as if Van Gogh painted with chicken and spices instead of oils.
The meat isn't overcooked like soup meat usually is (okay, maybe just a little). To me, the chicken is just an excuse, an afterthought. I'm in it for the broth and noodles, slippery ribbons that are the reason why I never wear anything "dry clean only" at Saigon Palace. I can also never finish the bowl, despite eating to the point of discomfort each time.
The secret to the soup, it turns out, is Golden Chick brand curry powder, a Madras-style blend heavy on the turmeric. That, plus a good shot of garlic, another of scotch bonnet chilies and scads of coconut milk, but no MSG.
Saigon Palace co-owner Tan Hong says pho cari ga is native to the southern Vietnamese city of Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, where it's made with duck. I ask him why they don't serve it that way, or with beef.
"We make too many kinds of soup already," he says.
Pho count : Faded menu lists 26 kinds.
Winning high marks for both deliciousness and uniqueness is the special lamb noodle soup with dry mushroom at Miss Saigon (394 Spadina Ave. at Nassau St., 416-597-9333).
This soup ($6.50), called hu tieu de tim, is the only one made with lamb that I encountered. Manager Peter Lam, whose wait staff are well trained in hovering, says it's a south Vietnamese specialty. I say, bring it on.
No. 36 is a dark broth crowned with crisp-sweet fried shallots, raw green and red onions, and a whole branch of purple-stemmed basil. Poking out from beneath the garnish are small chunks of fall-off-the bone lamb, the rib and shoulder pieces honeycombed with melt-in-the-mouth connective tissue and wide ribbons of fat. It takes five minutes of sipping and gnawing (there's no place to put the bones) just to get to the noodles.
Ah. The noodles, soft and silky rice sticks short enough to spoon up without staining clothing. Tucked amongst them are a few rehydrated shiitakes, adding an earthy bass note. Bean sprouts, too, work their crunchy magic. But it's the broth that draws me in. When I ask what's in it, Lam shows me a Thai-English-Chinese picture book of ingredients.
"Some of these," he says, pointing to photos of dried shrimp and chilies. He also points out garlic (should've known), cumin (wouldn't have guessed it) and star anise (ditto).
For an added thrill, the lamb soup comes with two condiments. One is a salty, funky fermented tofu paste the colour of coral. The other is a small glass jar of pickled hot peppers. These look innocuous, like the Italian kind, but they're not. Proceed with extreme caution.
Pho count : Ten versions.
Far to the west of the Spadina Ave. strip lies another cluster of Vietnamese restaurants. In Mississauga, Pho Mi Saigon (680 Silver Creek Blvd. at Cawthra Rd., 905-896-1687) shares a plaza with a giant Asian supermarket, guaranteeing a supply of authentic ingredients.
Of the 208 choices on the menu, I'm drawn to No. 50: Hu tieu mi dac biet, or special rice and egg noodle soup ($6).
"The `special' means it has everything," explains the waitress.
She ain't kidding. After placing a small plate with lime wedge, deadly red chili and a fried shrimp cracker in front of me, she returns with the soup.
It's the greens strewn on the surface of the large bowl that first register: fresh coriander, chopped green onions, ripped lettuce. Then I notice the seafood: fat shrimp, decorative curls of white squid and squares of fish cake with a bubbly surface like badly dried paint. The seafood is nicely cooked.
There's more: bean sprouts, cubes of fried pork rind, slivers of garlic, surgically planed strips of barbecued pork and something else the dull colour of which makes me suspect it's liver. (Bite. Yup, it's liver.) We haven't even gotten to the noodles yet — two kinds, both good: springy egg noodles the width of cappellini and rice threads almost as skinny.
All this is bathed in the most intense, heady chicken broth, just like great wonton soup. (Leftover broth turns into jelly in the refrigerator, it's that rich.)
Pho count : Regular and takeout menus list 25 kinds.
It's back to Spadina Ave. for the final soup epiphany: No. 66 on the menu of Pho Hung (350 Spadina Ave. at St. Andrews St., 416-593-4274).
This sour soup, called canh chua, isn't listed on the menu with the other soups. Instead, it is found under the Special Dishes section, right below such temptations as fried frog and barbecued pigeon. It comes in two sizes, with your choice of shrimp, chicken, fish or eel (traditional in Vietnam). The small shrimp version, which I order, costs $7.75 and easily feeds two.
Canh chua is a south Vietnamese specialty. At Pho Hung, it's likely to draw stares.
"What soup is that?" asks a woman from a nearby table. "It looks good."
It sure does. This is easily the prettiest soup of the bunch, vibrant with green, red and pink. There's fresh okra bobbing on the surface, cooked no more than a minute.
Also green are the pieces of crunchy celery and the blanket of minced rice paddy herb, or ngo om, the taste of which is both delicate and distinctive; think shiso leaves or lemon myrtle. The ngo om is also the source of the cumin aroma wafting from the bowl.
If that's all you ate — forget the honey-sweet golden pineapple, or the minced red chilies — you'd still be happy with the light broth, gracefully sour thanks to powdered tamarind. However, spoon up those sweet or hot elements, along with quartered tomatoes and an abundance of firm, peeled shrimp, and it's a pleasing new combination of flavours each time.
Pho count : 22 kinds.
If you ate any of these soups for breakfast, you could skip lunch and dinner.
By Amy Pataki - The Toronto Star - March 20, 2004.
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