It was almost 1 p.m. and I had just taken my place in the queue at Ngoc Xuyen Saigon. A layer of steam fogged the window and only a fluorescent neon in the shape of a bowl – the kind that flashes epileptically – was able to reveal what was really going on there. I had come in this little Vietnamese family restaurantnestled in a quiet street of 13e Parisian district, in the heart of the Asian district, to taste their pho soup, renowned as being one of the best in the capital.
Arriving at the counter, I observed the famous dish – emblem of Vietnamese cuisine – taking shape before my eyes. The cook started with the garnish. Using tongs, he lined the bottom of a bowl with freshly cooked rice noodles, on which he piled different pieces of beef: ribs and brisket, cut into thin slices, a few pieces of raw rump steak, as well as three gray meatballs with a compact texture. Everything was washed down with several ladles of a very dense beef broth which seemed to have simmered there, in the hollow of enormous stainless steel pots, for long hours. I watched the steaming bowl as it traveled through the air to my table. To enhance it, it was accompanied by finely chopped onion rings and a plate of aromatic herbs (common and Chinese coriander, Thai basil), bean sprouts, lime and bird’s eye chili. I also had two cups intended to accommodate, for the first, a portion of hoisin sauce (a thick brown sauce with a sweet-salty taste) and, for the other, sriracha sauce (a red sauce, relatively spicy) – they were to be used to season the meat during each bite.
Religiously, I now assembled the different ingredients one by one in the hollow of my bowl, mixed them vigorously and then, after having made my spoon disappear at the bottom of the broth, marked by a few halos of fat, I tried a first sip. As the mixture rolled under my tongue, I found here and there the pronounced flavor of the simmered beef, combined with that of a few spices – cinnamon, star anise and ginger, in particular. From then on, each mouthful of this deep soup, with its perfume armored with aromas, provoked in me a feeling between immediate comfort and addictive gluttony… an appetite that it had become impossible to curb.
Family culture
You have 70% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.