A thousand miles away from home, Vietnamese pho

1. After more than 2 flights with approximately 30 hours of flight, not including the transit time in Korea, I arrived in Boston on the East Coast of the United States at noon. My first meal, my first dish in America was... pho.

While waiting for service, I thought, coming to this place to eat a bowl of pho is truly a long journey of thousands of miles. Not speaking in a literary sense, but in reality, the equator, the longest parallel on earth, is 40,000 km long. Vietnam and the US are located at the eastern and western hemispheres, so the distance is about 14,000 to 20,000 km (depending on whether the destination is the West Coast or the East Coast). Each mile is about 1.8 km, so isn't the bowl of pho I'm about to eat thousands of miles away from home?

"Train" Pho in Philadelphia - Photo: XH

Without saying much, people know that the world culinary map often mentions Vietnamese dishes such as street bread, filter coffee, Hue beef noodle soup, Quang noodles... But pho is the most well-known dish abroad. Along with the ao dai and conical hat, pho is a unique brand of the Vietnamese people, mentioning pho means mentioning the Vietnamese people.

In the United States, where there are more than 2 million Vietnamese people living abroad, accounting for 40% of the Vietnamese people living abroad, finding a pho restaurant is very easy. Even in areas with a large Vietnamese population, there is a pho restaurant on almost every street. Americans who speak English cannot pronounce the question mark, so many restaurants with a large number of local customers only have the word "Pho" on their signs, read as "Pho" but everyone understands that it is a Vietnamese pho restaurant.

The first bowl of pho I had at the famous “Pho Pasteur” restaurant in Boston had a taste similar to pho from my hometown. The broth was clear and sweet, the beef was medium rare, there was a plate of herbs and blanched bean sprouts, and a full plate of lime and chili. However, because the customers were not only Vietnamese, the seasoning was somewhat reduced, for example, lacking a little bit of finely ground pepper, lacking a little bit of chili sauce according to my “taste”.

However, that alone is enough for me to inhale the flavor of the dish that is considered the "national soul" of my homeland, enough for me to be proud that the dish called pho has traveled thousands of miles to come here to contribute to the "identity" of the country on the other side of the American hemisphere.

2. The story of pho is so long that it would take a whole day to tell. From Boston, I traveled through bustling New York, Washington DC on the East Coast, to the Central region such as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, up to the gambling capital of Las Vegas, Nevada, and then back to California on the West Coast, where the Vietnamese population is most concentrated in the US. Thanks to that, I was present and enjoyed many pho restaurants and many types of pho. I can name Pho Bang in New York, Pho Bosa in Las Vegas, Pho Kim Long in Los Angeles, Pho Viet in Little Saigon...

The owner of the "Pho Bosa" restaurant (red shirt) in Las Vegas is Vietnamese - Photo: XH

First of all, anyone who has ever been to America knows that most bowls of pho in America are very large, often called “Xe lua” pho. There are many noodles and a lot of meat. When Vietnamese people come here, only those with a big appetite can finish the whole bowl, women and children sometimes share one bowl and it is still enough for 2 people. I asked the restaurant owners, they said that the “portion” of pho must be like that to be suitable for the locals.

There are many different explanations for why it is called “Xe lua” pho. Some say that in the past, pho was born in the North of our country, during the war there was a type of pho called “Xe nguoi lai” (Unmanned Aircraft) which was commercial pho with only broth and pho noodles but no meat. From “Xe nguoi lai” pho, it somehow changed to “Tau bay” pho. And since there was “Tau bay” pho, then “Xe lua” pho was born. But some say that calling a large bowl of pho is the way to call the XL (large size) clothing size, then the diners joked, turning XL into “Xe lua”!

Vietnamese pho in the US is also diverse. Speaking of meat, there is chicken pho, beef pho, pork balls, bone pho, and even lobster pho. Here, I would like to add that lobster, especially on the East Coast of the US, is quite cheap compared to the average income, only about 5 USD / 1 pound (ie 1 kg costs only 240,000 VND). Many pho restaurants also cater to the diversity of diners by "adding" more types of mushrooms, snails, and vegetables, making the "Xe lua" pho bowl even more abundant.

Of course, no matter what, Vietnamese pho in America is still not as delicious as Vietnamese pho in... Vietnam. At least, that's how it is for me. I feel like due to the quality of the rice or the traditional recipe, the pho noodles here are not as soft and smooth as the pho noodles in the country. Some places do not use large pho noodles but use other types of noodles instead. Or herbs, the stems are very long, the leaves are very large, dark green, thick but the flavor is still strong. Bean sprouts are the same, big, long but not as crispy and sweet as in our country. Only a few restaurants serving a large Vietnamese population have the full spicy aroma of cinnamon and star anise in the broth, the rest are only clear and just sweet enough.

Regarding prices, each place is different. In the US, the average income and the value of hours and days of labor in different states. Therefore, the price of each bowl of pho, in addition to the difference in ingredients, volume, and brand (beef is different from chicken, a large bowl is different from a regular bowl, a high-end restaurant is different from a cheap eatery), also varies according to market prices. The price of each bowl of pho ranges from 9 USD to 14 USD. If it is "high-end" pho using "premium" beef with lobster, for example, the price can go up to several dozen USD per bowl.

3. Vietnamese pho is so famous in the US in particular and the world in general that there are many websites dedicated to writing about pho, introducing different types of pho, and giving directions to delicious pho restaurants and shops. From being little known, today almost every American is familiar with and has even eaten pho many times.

I asked, many Americans answered, pho is very suitable because it is low in fat, not greasy and certainly good for health, especially in places with high rates of overweight and obesity. Also, in the past, Vietnamese pho was often "mixed" with Asian restaurants, but now restaurants and eateries have openly labeled "Pho" or are part of the "Vietnamese Cuisine" chain.

Pho Viet is proud to be in "Vietnamese Cuisine" - Photo: XH

The history of Vietnamese pho's penetration into the US could be written into a book. It is said that the first Vietnamese pho restaurants opened in the early 80s of the last century. Within just 2 decades after that, in the early 21st century, there were thousands of pho restaurants in the US. In 2000, a statistics organization said that the revenue from Vietnamese pho restaurants in the US reached half a billion US dollars. Currently, many Vietnamese pho brands have left their mark on diners such as Pho Hoa, Pho 79, Pho 24, Pho 2000... 4 years ago, in 2019, a Vietnamese pho brand also won the "James Beard Foundation Award" which is considered the Oscar in the culinary industry (the prestigious Oscar in the film industry).

Many Vietnamese living abroad confided to me that eating pho is not only a habit but also a way to return to their homeland. To put it poetically, it is a way of eating that contains memories and nostalgia. It is only natural that I have only been away for a few days and a half a month and already miss the taste of home, let alone my brothers and sisters who have settled here for many months and many years.

Many times when I held chopsticks and watched the steam rising from a bowl of pho in a foreign land, I kept thinking about the literary works of Nguyen Tuan, Vu Bang, Bang Son... What is the basis for a dish that makes people feel soft-hearted? The sparkle of literature, no matter how good, no matter how rich in imagery, is not equal to real life, when people face it, like pho for example, at a great distance of thousands of miles of geography. I just realized that happiness in life is not far away, sometimes just a moment with the aroma rising from a dish called Pho.

Notes : Pham Xuan Hung

Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/van-hoa/van-dam-duong-xa-pho-viet-nbsp/183354.htm