Pho - Like Hamburgers in the U.S. - If all the U.S. was burgers!

Alright, I have to be honest.  I’ve never had Pho before I came to Vietnam. 

I can still remember asking my sister what pho was a couple of years ago and her look of disbelief as she replied, “you’ve never had pho?  It’s sooooo good.”  I’m sorry, I’m just some uncultured Cretan that doesn’t get out much.  If you’ve never had Pho, don’t worry, it’s just Rice noodle soup and truth be told, I had much better rice noodle soup in Laos.

Well, Karina, I’m happy to report that I have now had just about every type of Pho known to man.  I ate pho breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I had pho for dessert.  I had pho dreams.  Pho Ga (chicken pho) Pho Bo (beef) Pho Tái (beef) Pho Nam (beef) Pho Bo Vien (more Beef)

PHO SHO!

Unfortunately for the pho vendors, Pho and Kate squared off and Pho Won.  So no pho for Kate.  However I was impressed by Kate’s diligence in trying to communicate the No meat, No soy diet to the roadside soup vendors.  To further complicate things, Vietnamese really love their meat, so when they finally understood that Kate didn’t want any meat in her food they would retort with “but, WHY?”  Haha, I could have helped, but I think I would have amplified the confusion.

Below are a few of the pictures of some pho I ate along the way.

 

Just a bowl of turtles at a Vietnamese Market

 This bowl is actually a boat.

A sidenote from Kate: 

The bakeries in Vietnam were incredible. Most days we were able to find bread or sweets on the street sides. The bigger cities had larger bakeries with croissants, donuts, cakes, cookies and any other desserts you can think of - open extra early to late at night, some of the most delicious I have ever had. Our stopping at the bakeries turned into a pretty sweet routine (pun intended). This made my daily noodle battle a little less taxing. I mean, it's hard to get worked up over noodles with a muffin in your hand, right?

My favorite Viet cookie (: