The purist’s guide to phở in Hanoi

A tribute not only to phở in the capital of Vietnam, but also to three extraordinary writers who wrote about it with wit, nostalgia, and devotion: Thạch Lam, Vũ Bằng, and Nguyễn Tuân.

Hanoi street scene, early 1940s. Photograph by Harrison Forman.

“To live in this world and not eat phở is foolish.
When the time comes to leave it,
one must surely offer phở as an offering.
So come, taste it now – lest you long for it later.”
— Tú Mỡ

HERE IS THE BEEF. THERE ARE THE NOODLES. Over it all – two ladles of clear, piping-hot broth, then a scattering of scallions. A twist of pepper, perhaps a squeeze of lime.

And that is all.

To a newcomer, phở can appear deceptively simple.

Vũ Bằng – one of the great chroniclers of Hanoi’s culinary world and a true Purist – even described phở as a basic dish.

“Why call it basic?” he asked. “Because it is true.”

This did not mean he underestimated the craft of the phở maker. On the contrary, Vũ Bằng knew better than anyone the instinctive culinary skill required to produce a proper (if not perfect) bowl.

Nowadays, eating phở has become something of a rite of passage for those who arrive in Hanoi – whether for a fleeting visit, a few years, or the foreseeable future. It is a box that has to be ticked along with drinking egg coffee and trying to get run over by a locomotive while holding a selfie-stick. Some leave underwhelmed by phở. Others may even claim to have eaten better bowls in Orange County, Houston, Footscray, Cabramatta, or even an airport terminal…

The Purist does not rush to make a rebuttal on the internet. That would be most inelegant – everyone is free to have their own (very questionable) opinion. At the same time, the Purist concedes that not every bowl served in the capital deserves celebration. Market forces being what they are, purveyors of average phở have sadly multiplied.

“Thus, phở is not only a dish, not only a delight for the senses,” as the esteemed Vũ Bằng once opined, “but also a problem: the problem of eating phở…”

What follows, therefore, is a guide to phở in Hanoi.

Not a guide that lists recommended restaurants – how patronising! No one needs to have their hand held when navigating a new city, even in Hanoi, where patience and persistence will be (if you pass the test) rewarded with epiphany.

Furthermore, the Purist knows that proclaiming any single shop to have the “best phở” could trigger disastrous consequences. He or she has witnessed what a single YouTube video, television crew or – worse yet – a Michelin recommendation can do to a favourite venue for any kind of Hanoi delicacy. The delicate ecosystem of a restaurant or humble stall is altered overnight, and the genie can never be coaxed back into the bottle.

Instead, we might see this guide as a small manifesto for the uninitiated – an attempt to explain how the purists of Hanoi think about phở, and where their enduring devotion comes from.

The essayist Thạch Lam – author of the beloved classic Hà Nội Băm Sáu Phố Phường (Hanoi’s Thirty-Six Streets) – once declared: “Phở is a special delicacy of Hanoi. It is not unique to Hanoi – but only in Hanoi does it taste truly good.” Now, before anyone combusts on the internet, it should be remembered that Thạch Lam died in 1942 – long before phở became a global obsession, or even before it had travelled south in any significant way.

Today even a proud Hanoian purist might blush when reading those words.

Then again, if you were told you could have only one more bowl of phở in your life – a bowl where every detail is exactly right: a generous tuft of noodles, soft and delicate; the meat tender; the broth clear and gently sweet, touched with a hint of ginger and the faintest whisper of fish sauce – your thoughts would surely drift, sooner or later, back to Hanoi.

Chapter I: A Very Short History

“The discovery of a new dish contributes more to human happiness than that of a new star.” — Jean Anthelme Brilliat Savarin:

“Many foreigners become so enamoured of phở that they unconsciously become its devoted followers,” writes Trịnh Quang Dũng in his essay 100 Năm Phở Việt (One Hundred Years of Vietnamese Phở). “Most of them soon want to know where phở came from and how old it is – questions that even many Vietnamese themselves cannot answer clearly.”

Ah yes – the burning question: where, exactly, did phở spring from?

Alas, the origins of phở have been debated endlessly without any final conclusion, though Mr Dũng does an admirable job threading his way through what others have described as a ‘murky history’.

Some scholars trained in classical Chinese learning claim that phở originated in China from a Cantonese dish called ngưu nhục phấn – beef rice noodles. According to this theory, the word phở is simply a corrupted pronunciation of phấn.

Mr Dũng is, however, skeptical. Ngưu nhục phấn has existed for a very long time, he notes, yet it remains confined to the place where it was born. It has never achieved the fame – or the geographical spread – of Vietnamese phở. More importantly, the two dishes differ both technically and gastronomically: instead of the delicate rice sheets that become phở noodles, the Chinese dish uses something closer to thick rice dough resembling Vietnamese bánh canh.

Another theory – gleefully peddled by Frenchmen at diplomatic soirées – proposes that phở derives from the French word feu, meaning “fire,” as in pot-au-feu. This theory left Mr Dũng, for one, a little flummoxed, since pot-au-feu is a rustic stew of beef simmered with vegetables such as carrots, leeks, and turnips.

The argument perhaps has a certain linguistic charm – feu morphing into phở. But are we to believe that early twentieth-century colonials were wandering the streets and pointing at things like enthusiastic toddlers – feu! lumière! chien! – to such an extent that Vietnamese copied their phrasing?

No, no, non.

What these theories really reveal is something else entirely. Vietnam, once again, finds itself placed between two empires – and phở ends up being assigned to foreign parents.

Countering those narratives, and drawing on folk memory and early twentieth-century records, Vietnamese scholars suggest that phở evolved from a rustic dish called xáo trâu – a buffalo stew sold along the docks of the Red River in the early 1900s.

At the time, Vietnamese people ate very little beef. In late nineteenth-century Hanoi only a handful of stalls sold it, and they often struggled to sell their stock. Beef bones were practically worthless. Meanwhile the riverfront was growing busy. Around 1908–09, steamship routes connected Hanoi with cities such as Hải Phòng and Nam Định. Chinese labourers from Yunnan worked the ships. Boats from Thanh Hóa and Nghệ An arrived carrying fish sauce and dried goods. Some historians also point to the villages around Nam Định – particularly Vân Cù – where families are said to have refined the early form of phở before many vendors later carried the trade to Hanoi.

At this stage, the Red River docks were a lively commercial centre – and where there is labour, there must be food. Street vendors carrying shoulder baskets soon flocked to the riverbanks selling a noodle soup made with the buffalo stew.

Because beef was difficult to sell and bones were often given away for free, some vendors began adding them to the pot. Gradually the beef stew took over. Before long the new dish spread along the riverbanks from Ô Quan Chưởng down to Hàng Mắm Street. Chinese labourers in the area also joined the trade, and the French scholar Henri Oger even recorded an image of a roaming phở vendor in his famous ethnographic work Technique du peuple annamite (1908–1909).

From those river docks – carried on the shoulders of wandering vendors – phở gánh (mobile pho) slowly spread through the alleys of Hanoi and then to other cities.

And, eventually, to airport terminals.

At least, this is the leading theory. Until someone invents a time machine, the Purist is satisfied with it – and is now sufficiently hungry to discuss how, and why, you should eat phở in Hanoi.

Chapter II: The Art of Simplicity

“Phở is profoundly a dish of the people.”
— Nguyễn Tuân

As you may have gathered from the brief history, phở is not a luxurious dish. Therefore, the Purist instinctively turns his nose up at costly ingredients and flagrant decadence.

Some fifteen years ago, a fashionable restaurant near the Hanoi Opera House unveiled what it proudly proclaimed to be the world’s first Kobe-beef phở. A bowl cost an astonishing $35 – roughly thirty-five times the ordinary price at the time. The stunt was about as convincing as a lazy circus trick: a gimmick designed to attract attention. In an effort to be luxurious, it was merely boorish. It succeeded, at least, in inspiring a rather sniffy article by the BBC that dryly mocked the spectacle of luxury in communist Vietnam.

Elsewhere in Vietnam, edible gold leaf – a tasteless material – along with a cut of A5 Wagyu found its way into a bowl that cost a mind-melting $161. Alas, people are free to burn their money as they please – in most societies, at least. But phở, at its heart, is a soup born from simplicity. It is the opposite of lavish. It requires no prime cuts of anything – certainly not Kobe, and certainly not marbled Wagyu.

In foreign lands, where phở is found but not always understood, a Vietnamese restaurateur may feel the need to lure in carnivorous Europeans by advertising “phở with 150 grams of sirloin steak.” Even this will make the Purist shed a quiet tear and think of home – where a few modest slices of beef are entirely sufficient.

In truth, phở needs very little. Chín (well-done brisket), nạm (flank), or gầu (fatty brisket) are more than enough. The Purist will happily take any of these, even before tái, the slices of rare beef that so often dominate modern bowls.

The writer Nguyễn Tuân, in his celebrated essay simply titled “Phở,” reminded readers that the dish is built upon xương xẩu – literally “bones and scraps.” The word xẩu, he observed after speaking with a vendor, is not quite the same as xương. It refers specifically to those broth bones with stubborn shreds of meat and tendon still clinging to them.

In Nguyễn Tuân’s day, rickshaw pullers would sometimes step into a phở shop and order a cup of rice wine alongside a bowl of these xẩu bones. A humble pleasure – yet perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the dish.

For a Purist such as Nguyễn Tuân, the height of luxury would have been mỡ gầu – that precious cut whose marbled fat is neither greasy nor heavy, firm like wax yet tender – or perhaps a cánh gầu, a “wing” of brisket.

And if the Purist chooses tái, he will accept it only if the meat is so fresh it seems almost to twitch beneath the knife. Nguyễn Tuân once described such a slice as một quả thăn – literally, a “tenderloin fruit.”

In summary, there is only one sensible conclusion.

Never, ever eat fancy phở. It is thoroughly déclassé.

Chapter III: Acceptable Variations

“Anyway, we must admit that when it comes to eating phở, Vietnamese people are strangely fastidious.”
— Vũ Bằng

There is no such thing as a “standard order” of phở.

The Purist enjoys nothing more than sitting in a familiar shop and listening as Hanoians wander in to place their orders. Some customers are as particular as New Yorkers in a delicatessen. One asks for phở nước béo – broth enriched with extra fat. Another requests phở chín không hành – well-done beef, no scallions. A third wants phở tái nhiều thịt, ít bánh – extra meat, fewer noodles. Someone else insists on gầu giòn – brisket with just the right balance of fat and firmness.

And then there are the devotees of phở gà – the original “acceptable variation”¹ – who are arguably even fussier. One asks for chicken liver, heart, or congealed blood. Another requests a poached egg slipped into the broth. A third demands only breast meat, while a fourth insists the skin must remain.

How, the novice may ask, does one discover which version is the correct one for oneself?

There is nothing else to it – you must eat a few hundred bowls of phở and find out. If this requires moving to Hanoi, so be it.

Of course, once you get there, you will see that the world of phở contains many acceptable variations. There is phở sốt vang, where noodles are served with wine-braised beef stew. There is phở áp chảo, where the noodles are pan-fried before being topped with stir-fried beef and vegetables. There is phở xào, phở trộn, and other offshoots that have emerged naturally over the decades. All have earned their place within the broad canon of Vietnamese phở.

But imagine the Purist lying on his deathbed. With his final strength he rises – against the doctor’s orders – slips out of the house – contrary to his family’s wishes – and makes his way to a familiar phở shop for one last bowl.

What will he order?

Phở chín.

No – not even tái is necessary.

Many people believe they are adventurous eaters because they order their steak medium-rare in expensive restaurants. In the world of phở, tái – thin slices of beef scalded pink by the boiling broth – has become the default setting. In many restaurants, if a novice simply raises a finger and says “Uh… phở please,” the bowl that arrives will almost certainly be phở tái chín. The novice may believe the rare beef makes his bowl more sophisticated.

But the Purist knows that chín alone possesses a low-key perfection.

The beef has simmered gently until it becomes tender and relaxed. It absorbs the flavour of the broth itself. Nothing about it demands attention. Nothing about it tries to impress.

A brief side note on nutrition: “Many people claim that eating phở tái – rare beef phở – is more nutritious than phở chín,” observed Nguyễn Tuân with a certain doctorly authority. “If one requires nourishment, one may drink Soviet Pantocrine² or concoct some Chinese medicinal tonic – the results are far clearer than rare beef phở…

“But to eat phở properly, in the true style of phở, one must eat phở chín. It is more fragrant; its aroma expresses the true soul of phở. Moreover, in terms of visual aesthetics, the discerning eye always finds the slice of cooked beef more beautiful than the slice of rare beef.”

Please – if you are ailing – do not fear eating two or three bowls of phở. It will certainly improve your mood. But it should not be mistaken for medicine. Having said all that, when one is horrifically hungover, a raw egg slipped into a bowl of fatty phở broth may prove remarkably restorative.

Chapter IV: Experimentation Is Futile

“For my part, I remain loyal to classical phở, just as I prefer listening to traditional opera performed in its original style.”
— Thạch Lam

The Purist is secure in his place in the world. He or she understands mankind’s restless nature – our impulse to tinker, to improve, to dabble with things that were perfectly fine to begin with. He or she accepts that experimental phở exists.

The Purist simply has no desire to eat it.

No one should be run out of town for attempting phở made with, say, salmon, duck, or rabbit. Or for ‘deconstructing’ it and turning it into a sandwich – or even an ice cream. Others will call such things sacrilege, and they are probably right.

The Purist takes a gentler view. To err is human, and all that. Eat what you like, if you wish. Just don’t post a photograph of it on Instagram.

And when you are finished, please book a ticket to Hanoi and begin serving your time. Over the course of a year – perhaps longer – order dozens and dozens of bowls of phở, adjusting this and that within the accepted canon; mix and match the different cuts of beef on offer. Before long you will surely agree that adding lobster to phở (yes, someone tried this) is a fundamentally misguided act.

The instinct to “improve” phở is not new. Writing in the late 1920s, Thạch Lam observed with mild concern: “Speaking of phở, I must mention recent innovations. Some people, believing that change means progress, introduced chicken phở instead of the traditional version.

“Others made more cautious changes. They call this ‘reformed phở.’ But just as with traditional opera, once you mix in modern styles it often ruins the original.

“If reform is necessary, it should preserve the original flavour while refining the technique. The substance should remain the same, while the spirit grows sharper and more refined.”

In his excellent essay on phở, the young Vũ Bằng also recalled a phở stall on what he calls “Phố Mới” (literally, New Street) that attempted an outrageous deviation. The ensuing scandal reminded him of the moment when the celebrated cải lương performers Năm Châu and Phùng Há tried to introduce Western-style dances onto the stage of southern theatre.

At the stall in question, the cook added húng lìu, sesame oil, and – look away in horror, ye fellow Purists – even tofu to the bowl. The experiment, unsurprisingly, did not last long.

Another abomination involved adding chopped carrots, pickled papaya, and celery to create what looked like a careless musical composition. Thankfully, as Nguyễn Tuân later observed with quiet amusement, the public’s consciousness of phở was not nearly as decadent as that of the inventors of these most unacceptable variations.

“In my view, the fundamental principle of pho is that it must be made with beef,” wrote Nguyễn Tuân. “There may be meats – four-legged, aquatic, or winged – tastier than beef, but if it is pho, it must be beef. Is it out of rebellion against orthodoxy that people have made duck pho, char siu pho, rat pho? If this search continues, soon we’ll have snail pho, frog pho, goat pho, dog, monkey, horse, shrimp, carp, pigeon, even gecko pho – total chaos, pho gone mad.”

Thankfully, people have continued to demand the traditional essence of the dish. Indeed, more than a century of experimentation has produced very little improvement upon the original formula: broth, noodles, and a few modest slices of beef.

In our mixed-up, muddled world, we also now have phở-flavoured crisps, phở burgers, cocktail bars serving Pho-jitos, and various other pho-inspired products. The Purist observes these seemingly innocent inventions with the same mild curiosity one reserves for a two-headed dog. He may look but he would never touch them. Not without shivering.

Chapter V: The Secret of the Broth

“Even from afar, the smell of phở has a mysterious pull – like the drifting incense of the Hương Pagoda, urging one’s steps upward, drawing you to climb toward the inner temple and then wander onward again.”
— Vũ Bằng

For the Purist, the broth is the only thing that matters.

That is not entirely true, of course. It merely sounds authoritative – the sort of pronouncement an overbearing Purist might make while leaning back in his chair and smoking a pipe. But it is very nearly true. If the broth is even slightly less than perfect, then the bowl itself cannot be perfect.

Ergo, a bowl of phở is judged first by the broth, and only afterward does anything else matter. The noodles may be slightly over-soft, the herbs a little wilted, the table somewhat sticky – but if the broth is right, the bowl is redeemed.

How can a novice know if a broth is good – or even great? It should be clear but not thin, fragrant but never aggressive. One should notice star anise and ginger, yet never feel assaulted by them.

The foundations are built on charred ginger and onion, marrow bones, and a quartet of spices: star anise, cassia bark, black cardamom, and clove. Yet every phở master has calculated his or her own balance of ingredients and timing in the process – and no master will ever replicate another, whether accidentally or by design.

After three or four spoonfuls, if the cook has done the job properly, a Purist will stop analysing the broth entirely and simply continue eating with a feeling of great satisfaction.

That is the moment he or she knows the broth is correct and this pho is a keeper.

Thạch Lam once described a particularly delicious bowl of phở as generous yet neatly composed. The broth was clear; the noodles tender but disciplined. There was a scattering of herbs, a faint dusting of black pepper, a squeeze of lime – and perhaps, he suspected, the faintest whisper of cà cuống essence completing the aroma. What an eye – or rather, what a nose – he must have had. A true Purist.

As Thạch Lam would surely agree, a bowl of phở is an exercise in equilibrium. Too much of anything and the spell is broken. Everything must be just-so.

One imagines that men such as Thạch Lam, Vũ Bằng, or Nguyễn Tuân, when greatly impressed by a bowl, may occasionally have chanced their arm and asked the vendor: “Anh ơi, chị ơi – nước dùng này nấu thế nào mà ngon thế?”
(“What did you put in this broth to make it so perfect?”)

Cue the sideways glance.

As if a master of phở would even hint at the recipe.

“The secret of phở broth,” as Vũ Bằng once wrote, “is guarded as jealously as the Chinese guard their treasures. Among phở lovers the question remains an eternal subject of speculation…

“Some insist the broth must contain dried squid heads. Others swear that the secret lies in exceptional fish sauce. Still others claim that true sweetness can only be achieved by pounding freshwater field crabs, straining them, and adding the liquid to a pot of marrow bones – carefully cleaned, but not simmered too long, lest the broth grow heavy.”

But who can say?

Vũ Bằng himself admitted that each time he lifted a bowl of phở to his mouth he pondered but never solved the mystery.

“In the end,” he wrote, “I set aside such worries. Eating a bite of phở, sipping a spoonful of fragrant broth, catching the occasional whiff of a fresh herb – and not knowing why phở tastes so good – gives me more pleasure than understanding the secret too clearly.”

What more can be said?

The message from this eloquent Purist is simple enough: seek out the finest bowl of phở you can find – and allow the mystery to remain.

Chapter VI: On Condiments and Additions

From time to time a novice may witness a local diner in Hanoi going to town with his bowl in the manner of Jackson Pollock, with too many pots of paint at his feet: fresh chilli is tossed in along with chopped garlic swimming in vinegar and a squeeze of lime. A quẩy (fried breadstick) gets dunked enthusiastically in the broth – perhaps there’s even a poached egg on the side.

This spectacle should not necessarily be imitated – the diner in question may simply be hungry, bored, or a complete glutton.

The novice must understand that condiments exist to be used sparingly and with discretion. Should you be served a perfect bowl of phở, you must proceed carefully – every addition carries the risk of tampering with perfection.

The most common mistake is over-enthusiasm. A newcomer squeezes lime or deposits fish sauce too generously. Worse still is the moment when someone dumps a great red splodge of chilli sauce into the broth.

Let it be noted plainly: those who declare they “cannot live without Sriracha” are not and never will be Purists. They are victims of a decades-long marketing campaign to make everything taste like Sriracha.

If you have ever seen a local man add both fresh chilli and a heroic spoonful of chilli sauce, there is probably an explanation. For example, he had the flu and couldn’t taste anything.

Even the more traditional condiments – garlic steeped in vinegar or a few slices of fresh chilli – are potent adjustments. Overdo either of them and the balance is lost.

So let us observe the Purist at work.

He or she approaches the bowl cautiously. First he or she tastes the broth. Only then does he or she decide whether anything is needed. Perhaps a touch of garlic vinegar. Two paper-thin slices of chilli.

Sometimes nothing at all.

The lesson is simple: condiments should sharpen or tweak the broth, not define it.

As for the great guilty pleasure – the greasy fried sticks of dough known as quẩy, often outsourced from some distant supplier – opinions among Purists are mixed. In his essay on phở, Vũ Bằng warned that dunking quẩy into the broth merely “for the look of it” spoils the bowl entirely.

One must admit that, when snapped in half and dipped with restraint, a piece of quẩy can provide a certain pleasure – a crisp counterpoint to the soft noodles and tender beef. The Purist therefore tolerates its presence, particularly on a winter’s morning, when the Hanoi cold seeps into one’s bones and inspires a deep hunger.

But ultimately, phở itself requires no such accompaniment.

Indeed, for Vũ Bằng, a proper bowl only needs a few modest companions: northern pepper, a squeeze of lime, a slice or two of chilli, scallions, and perhaps a little coriander.

“Everything else is forbidden,” he concluded.

“Otherwise it becomes vulgar.”

Chapter VII: Beg to Differ

“The connoisseur of phở – the careful eater – cannot simply walk into the first phở shop he sees and eat without thought.”
— Vũ Bằng

Not every Purist shares the same taste in phở. Two hot-headed or egotistical Purists may even clash over the matter. These days such disputes occur in Facebook comments. Insecure Purists brandish encyclopaedic knowledge in an effort to outdo one another, each hoping to “ratio” the other into submission.

Whoever’s comment receives the most thumbs-up or laughing-weeping emojis is declared the winner. A regrettable development for humanity, we must all agree.

It was better in simpler times, when a Purist had to write an entire book – or at the very least a long and eloquent essay – to express a steadfast opinion. And when a rival Purist encountered such claims and disagreed, he too had no choice but to retreat into a room for several weeks and compose a whole book – or at least a long and eloquent essay – in response.

Consider the case of Thạch Lam, who once wrote that the phở at a certain hospital in Hanoi was extraordinary. The humble stall sat beneath a sleepy tree – perhaps a xà cừ or an old bàng – where an elderly woman and her family served bowls of phở at a very reasonable price. Each morning from six to seven, patients, nurses, orderlies, and medical students gathered around the pot. United by the broth, they elevated the act of eating phở into something approaching a respectable art.

A charming scene indeed – one that tempted Vũ Bằng to seek out the same bowl some years later.

Yet he found it only acceptable.

Ăn được. Nothing to write home about.

The Purist understands that devotion to phở is intensely personal. Each knows where his or her preferred bowl may be found, yet rarely claims it is “the best.” Novices should be wary of anyone who does. Should you see an Instagram-powered queue stretching down a street for a phở shop that a random food bro has declared to be ‘the best in Hanoi’, it is usually safe to assume that its halcyon days have already been consigned to history.

So how does one find a favourite bowl?

As Vũ Bằng advised, the true eater must investigate, inquire, and experiment before settling on a place. There are clues for the attentive observer. The shop should be busy, especially with regulars who appear to know exactly what they are ordering. The aroma drifting from the pot should reach the street before you reach the doorway. The vendor often works with a certain seriousness – someone who has repeated the same movements many thousands of times. Inside, conversation is limited, if not nonexistent. People are not there to socialise; they are there to eat phở.

The Purist learns through patience rather than appropriation. Months – sometimes years – are spent wandering, tasting, returning. He or she may even spot a promising phở shop the night before visiting it – catching sight of the simmering pot and breathing in the aroma as the master prepares the broth for the morning. The Purist can then go to bed knowing exactly where he or she will enjoy a most delicious bowl of phở in the morning.

Sweet dreams, indeed.

In summary, you can’t be lazy – you must put the time in and eat a lot of phở to establish your favourites (there may be more than one).

No one can tell you where they will be – though Hanoi would be a very good place to begin looking. To throw you a bone, one generous Purist suggests wandering alongside the train tracks on Phùng Hưng Street or ambling around the rectangle bounded by Bát Đàn, Hàng Giầy, Hàng Đồng, and Hàng Vải.

But here is the strange part: you may only identify your absolute favourite bowl after you have left the city. One day, far away, you will suddenly find yourself thinking of Hanoi – the drowsy lakes, the magnificent trees, the narrow streets at dawn – and somewhere in the middle of that memory will appear the taste of a particular broth.

Ah, what I would do to be there now, eating that bowl of phở, you will think.

And you already know where you will go first when you return.

Back to that bowl.

Back to phở.

Chapter VIII: What’s in a Name?

“Phở names must be short – a single strong syllable – clean as the slice of a knife through brisket.”
— Nguyễn Tuân

The official name of a phở shop is rarely of great consequence.

If someone eagerly tells a Purist the name of a restaurant, he may even become slightly suspicious. A location is usually enough: the street, the corner, perhaps a tree or the market nearby serving as a marker. “The phở place near the tram depot.” “The one by the hospital gate.”

In Hanoi, this is precise enough.

In his time, Nguyễn Tuân once observed that phở stalls followed their own quiet naming traditions. The names were short – usually a single syllable – often the owner’s given name or that of a child: Phở Phúc, Phở Lộc, Phở Thọ, Phở Tư.

Sometimes the public invented a nickname based on a physical trait of the vendor: Phở Gù (“Hunchback Phở”), Phở Lắp (“Stammering Phở”). At other times the place itself became the name: Phở Nhà Thương (“Hospital Phở”), Phở Bến Tàu Điện (“Tramway Phở”), Phở Gầm Cầu (“Under-the-Bridge Phở”).

There were, of course, occasional exceptions to these modest naming traditions. One early and celebrated shop was Phở Trưởng Ca, located at 24 Hàng Bạc Street. According to the chronicle Hà Nội in the First Half of the 20th Century, written by the Vietnamese historian and researcher Nguyễn Văn Uẩn (1912–1991), the name came from the caretaker of the nearby Dũng Thọ village temple – a man known as Trưởng Ca, who tended the shrine by day and sold phở by night. The establishment served customers until four in the morning and became something of a minor institution.

After Trưởng Ca died, the late-night trade was inherited by another vendor with the rather unusual name Phở Sửa Sai – “Rectification Phở.” The name reflected a melancholy episode of modern history: the owner had once been wrongly classified during the land reform campaigns and was later officially “rectified.” After his rehabilitation, the authorities allowed him to reopen his shop.

People claimed that his bowls of phở tasted especially honest afterward. One might even say they carried the flavour of vindication.

But throughout history, most phở shops have chosen names that are brief, direct, and practical. As Nguyễn Tuân remarked in 1957, one would never encounter grand establishments with flamboyant names like “Autumn Wind Pavilion” or “White Snow Palace.” If such a place did exist, a Purist would wisely avoid it. That is still true today.

A truly great phở shop often transcends signage altogether. It becomes the reference point of the entire street. Ask for directions and people will say: “It’s next to the phở place on such-and-such street.”

When a name does circulate, it is usually short and sturdy: Phở Thìn, Phở Sướng, Phở Vui.

As you see, one word is enough.

Chapter IX: No Dress Code

“This is because the true phở connoisseur cares only about the essentials: the phở itself, not the surroundings.”
— Vũ Bằng

The Purist does not trust phở served in luxurious surroundings. He is equally skeptical of modern franchises. They may be spotless, efficient, and attractively designed – but they are often curiously soulless. If they serve excellent phở, the Purist will not object, although he may feel a little nostalgic for the shops of his youth – Phở Thìn (R.I.P.), for instance.

The place was hardly comfortable, if one were to compare it pointlessly with a living room. The space was narrow, the air permanently cloudy with steam and the perfume of sizzling beef. Low fans rotated lazily overhead, redistributing the heat. Metal tables stood so close together that elbows frequently collided. At the front, a cook worked over a scorching pan, tossing beef with garlic in quick, impatient movements before sliding the meat into waiting bowls of noodles and broth.

Customers wedged themselves onto stools, bent over their bowls, and ate quickly. No one lingered. No one complained about the heat, the crowd, or the lack of elegance, for an obvious reason: the phở was glorious.

Phở has always been food for the people, and it does not require glamorous surroundings. A plastic stool and a small table – or perhaps another plastic stool serving as the table – are perfectly adequate.

Nor must we expect the owners to smile – or, heaven forbid, look chirpy.

They may not even look directly at their customers. This should not be mistaken for disdain. They are concentrating on the making of phở. Regulars will notice that, without a word exchanged, their customary bowl appears moments after they sit down. This is how the vendor acknowledges their loyalty.

Many years ago, one of Vũ Bằng’s favourite phở stalls stood on Hàng Than Street near the old water tower. The owner, a man named Tráng, possessed a most dispiriting appearance. He was thin, his lips drooped slightly, and his eyes seemed dull and distant – as though he had only just returned from the underworld and was still half trapped in its shadows.

He worked with a white kerchief wrapped around his head, which only added to the faintly ghostly effect.

Tráng was also notoriously stubborn. Every day seventy, eighty, even ninety people crowded around his stall, filling the pavement and clamouring for bowls. Yet he behaved as though he saw and heard nothing.

He sliced the beef, poured the fish sauce, and ladled the broth with complete indifference. Whoever waited too long – fine. Whoever grew impatient – also fine. Even if someone cursed him, he remained unmoved.

Arrive by car, or barefoot? Arrive in beautiful robes, or in rags? It was all the same to him.

The crowd often muttered: why does he not rent a larger space, hire more staff, expand the operation? Why not strike a deal with the nearby lumber yard, set out proper tables and chairs, and have someone collect the money?

Mr. Tráng never answered. And he certainly never smiled. It was enough to make Vũ Bằng want to slap him.

The trouble was – however much one disliked the man, one could not dislike his phở.

All of which reminds us of a timeless truth: a good phở vendor may appear slightly intimidating, grumpy, or aloof.

The finest phở cooks are rarely cheerful conversationalists. They are too busy ensuring that every bowl leaves the counter exactly as it should. If a vendor moves too quickly, chats freely with customers, or – heaven forbid – pauses to laugh at a story, one begins to worry that their attention has wandered from the broth.

Some restaurants nowadays cultivate the reputation of having a “famously fractious owner.” The Purist finds such branding a little tiresome. Nevertheless, if the phở is excellent, he or she will still eat there.

After all, the bowl is what matters.

Back in the early 1950s, the man named Tráng on Hàng Than Street tested Vũ Bằng’s patience more than once. Yet the writer had good reason to bite his tongue.

For who among us has not also fought through a crowd for a bowl of phở – and then, before taking the first bite, paused for a moment simply to look at it?

To admire the broth, the noodles, the slices of beef arranged just so.

It is, after all, an extraordinary thing.

Chapter X: A Few Points (Not Insignificant)

Morning Phở, Night Phở

The Purist knows this to be true: morning phở is different from night phở.

In Hanoi, the early birds – and there are many of them – insist that phở belongs to the milky morning. As if it emerged from some mythical dawn, created at first light and therefore destined to be eaten just after sunrise.

Night owls disagree entirely. They will tell you phở belongs to the late hours, when the broth has simmered patiently through the night beneath a quiet moon and a scatter of stars.

The two camps will never see eye to eye – largely because early birds and night owls rarely meet.

But if they did, they might agree on one thing. Afternoon phở is the most regrettable scenario.

It is sometimes necessary, of course. But everyone knows it lacks a certain poetry.

Chitchat – or the Lack Thereof

A Purist does not invite a friend for phở in order to chat. If anything, he may ignore the friend entirely.

Phở is not an accompaniment to gossip, complaints, or the trading of personal misfortunes. One goes to a phở shop to eat phở.

There are, however, emergency circumstances. If a friend suffers a broken heart, loses a job, or squanders a small fortune in some foolish cryptocurrency venture, the Purist may bring them to his favourite phở shop.

This does not mean he wishes to hear more about their sob story. The tactic is simple: place a bowl of phở before the unfortunate soul. Allow the broth to do its work. Without a word exchanged, the friend will feel better about everything.

At least until hunger returns.

Quickly, But Not Crudely

The Purist eats at roughly the same pace as everyone else – quickly, but not crudely. With steady determination the contents of the bowl disappear: noodles, beef, herbs, broth.

At the end, a spoonful of broth may remain – perhaps half a spoonful – a small tribute to what once filled the bowl and now resides somewhere more comfortable.

Out of respect for the vendor and the customers who will soon take the seat, the Purist does not linger. Phở arrives very hot and should be eaten while the broth still steams.

Phones are not consulted. The room is not surveyed. It is, in its own polite way, a swift demolition job.

If the Purist pauses and stares into the bowl, it is usually for only two reasons. He or she has suddenly realised they left their wallet at the café.

Or – far worse – the phở is below par.

Puns with the Word Phở

The Purist does not approve of puns made in the English language with the word phở. For starters, they have all been done to death. “Phở-nomenal.” “Are you phở-real?” “Phở-get about it.” One encounters them on restaurant chalkboards, tourist T-shirts, and the odd neon sign.

Naturally, the Purist would never make such a pun.

He or she eats phở for phở’s sake.

Chapter XI: On the Passing of Time

Every phở shop has its moment. Nothing lasts forever – not even a phở institution in Hanoi.

As Vũ Bằng wrote in 1948, each phở stall has its own era. Many famous carts and shops, once crowded with admirers, even in his time, had already survived only in memory.

The Purist therefore carries two favourite bowls in his or her heart. The first is immortal: the phở of childhood, the bowl eaten long ago, perhaps when a father or mother first led him or her to a humble stall before school. This memory cannot be replaced.

The second is the phở of the present moment – the dependable bowl waiting somewhere in the city today. It is the place the Purist rushes to after stepping off a plane from some distant and overrated culinary destination.

Paris, for example.

The Purist does not recover from jet lag with sleep. He recovers with phở. One bowl of hot broth restores the body far better than eight hours in bed. By morning he awakens realigned, the memory of overpriced, mediocre foreign food already fading into something like a strange dream.

Still, every generation of Purists worries that the next generation will allow the standards to slip. A friend of Nguyễn Tuân – obviously another dedicated phở enthusiast who spent three decades roaming Hanoi in search of its finest bowls – once declared that by 1952 phở had reached its absolute peak, “like a virtuoso musical composition: nothing to criticise, nothing to add, nothing to remove.”

Others have worried about phở’s fate in more dramatic ways. One anxious intellectual once suggested to Nguyễn Tuân and others that in some imagined socialist future, small-scale food stalls might disappear entirely and be replaced by factory-produced canned phở. Diners would simply drop the can into boiling water before opening it, allowing the noodles inside to swell.

The idea was met with immediate outrage.

“Nonsense!” someone reportedly shouted in the café where the discussion occurred. “As long as Vietnamese people exist, bowls of phở will exist. Our phở will always be hot and fragrant. It will never come from a can.”

Still, the Purist cannot help worrying a little.

Some young Hanoians now claim to prefer ramen. Others are too busy intermittent fasting, counting calories, or training for marathons to eat a bowl of noodles. Some even brag about not eating phở. Can you imagine?

It is enough to make an old Purist fret.

“My children hardly eat phở,” one Purist might confess to another over coffee (after finishing a bowl elsewhere). “Once or twice a year at most. Perhaps in a hundred years the Vietnamese will barely eat it at all.”

The other Purist will shake his head and offer a solution – a kind of time machine.

They will trick their children into reading the works of Thạch Lam, Nguyễn Tuân, and Vũ Bằng. Admittedly this might require a pandemic, a world war, or some other catastrophe that forces young people to sit down with a book.

But who could read their words and resist the lure of phở?

Consider the scene described by Vũ Bằng as he approaches his favourite stall on Hàng Than Street. There stands the unflappable (and un-slappable) vendor, Mr. Tráng, studiously preparing bowl after bowl.

“Phở chín,” the writer orders, taking his place beneath the tree and hoping he will not have to wait too long.

From there he watches as the slices of cooked beef are laid gently over what will be his noodles. Then comes the ladle of broth, perhaps a pinch of pepper, a squeeze of lime, and a drop of vinegar. With that, the poem of phở is complete.

Surely, on reading those words, it would be easy to picture yourself alongside Vũ Bằng, the master Purist.

But just as you are about to dig in, a little too greedily, Vũ Bằng imparts some wisdom.

First, you must take your spoon. Now sip a little of the broth – carefully. Have you noticed its aroma?

Yes, the broth is extremely hot – almost scorching – yet phở must be eaten this way to be delicious, he explains. But look how the meat is tender, and the noodles soft.

With a sip you will taste the sharp warmth of ginger, the bite of pepper, the spark of chili. Then the gentle fragrance of scallions, the pungent aroma of herbs, and the mild sweetness of the beef.

Everything about it is honest and natural. Nothing artificial.

And after you slurp it all down, Vũ Bằng will ask one final question:

Is eating a bowl of phở like this not a kind of bliss?

Yes, anh ơi.

Yes, it is.

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Resources & Further Reading

The reflections in this work of non-fiction owe much to the writings of several Vietnamese authors who captured the culture, rituals, and poetry surrounding phở in Hanoi.

Nguyễn Tuân. “Phở.”
A celebrated essay by one of Vietnam’s great stylists, first published in the 1950s. Wonderfully funny, detailed, and informative. Nguyễn Tuân – a journalist, essayist, and literary icon – approached phở with the seriousness of a connoisseur. He was, without question, a true Purist.

Thạch Lam. Hà Nội Băm Sáu Phố Phường (Hanoi’s Thirty-Six Streets).
A gentle and nostalgic portrait of everyday life in Hanoi in the early twentieth century. Thạch Lam’s writing preserves the atmosphere of the city’s markets, vendors, and street foods, including memorable scenes involving phở.

Nguyễn Dũng. “Một Trăm Năm Phở Việt” (One Hundred Years of Vietnamese Phở).
An excellent essay tracing the origins and development of phở through the twentieth century. It includes anecdotes about early Hanoi vendors such as Phở Trưởng Ca and the legendary late-night stalls of the Old Quarter.

Vũ Bằng. “Phở” / “The Delicacy of Hanoi: Phở.”
An essay by the writer best known for Miếng Ngon Hà Nội (Delicacies of Hanoi). As usual, Vũ Bằng – a Purist’s Purist – writes with warmth and humour. His reflections on phở remain among the most vivid ever written.

Tú Mỡ. “Phở Đức Tụng.”
A playful and affectionate poem about phở written by the satirical poet Tú Mỡ. The poem is a reminder that the dish has inspired not only essays and arguments, but poetry as well.

Erica J. Peters. “Defusing Phở: Southern Vietnamese Cuisine and the Politics of Culinary Identity.”
A thoughtful historical essay exploring the regional development of phở and the cultural politics surrounding its identity in modern Vietnam.

Glossary of terms

Chín (well-done beef): the quiet classic – thin slices of brisket or flank simmered gently in the broth until fully cooked; the meat becomes soft, relaxed, and deeply infused with the flavor of the soup. Many purists consider phở chín the purest expression of the dish – modest, balanced, and complete.

Tái (rare beef): paper-thin slices of raw beef placed in the bowl and scalded by boiling broth, turning delicately pink within seconds; when done well the texture is tender and silky, though when done poorly it can feel like a culinary afterthought.

Tái chín: a mixture of rare and well-done beef, now something of a default order in many restaurants when a newcomer simply asks for “phở bò”; it offers variety, though some purists may feel it hedges its bets.

Nạm (flank): lean beef with long fibers and a firmer texture, delivering a deeper, more assertive beef flavor for those who prefer less fat and more bite.

Gầu (fatty brisket): one of the treasures of the bowl, with thin layers of fat that soften in the hot broth, producing richness without heaviness – what Nguyễn Tuân admired as meat whose fat is “firm like wax yet tender.”

Gầu giòn: a firmer section of brisket where fat and connective tissue create a slightly crisp, pleasantly chewy texture prized by diners who enjoy contrast in the bowl.

Bắp (shank): lean, muscular beef from the leg, sliced thin into neat rings with small veins of tendon; its texture is firmer and slightly springy, satisfying for those who prefer structure rather than softness.

Gân (tendon): translucent, gelatinous slices softened by long simmering into a tender, elastic bite — beloved by connoisseurs though often surprising to newcomers.

Xương / Xẩu (bones): the quiet foundation of the entire enterprise — phở broth depends on marrow bones and scraps simmered for hours; as Nguyễn Tuân noted, xẩu refers specifically to those bones with shreds of meat and tendon still clinging to them, the humble material from which the noble broth is born.

1. From Vũ Bằng: In Hà Nội, there are two days each week when “professional phở-eaters” become annoyed: Friday and Monday. These are the days when there is no beef. Those addicted to beef phở long for it as girls long for boys, as boys long for girls.

Most notably, on those days, Phở Tráng absolutely refuses to sell even a single bowl, while all the other vendors switch to chicken phở.
Chicken phở? Tráng openly objects.
“How could soft, silky noodles be paired with a meat that is stiff, bland, lacking depth—unable to harmonize with the broth to form a unified, rhythmic whole?”

Many true phở-lovers agree with Tráng. They refuse to eat chicken phở.
But most people—already addicted to phở—cannot survive a morning without a hot bowl, so they eat it anyway, and soon grow accustomed.

In truth, comparing beef phở with chicken phở is pointless. Yet on a leisurely autumn morning, with a slight chill in the air, sitting down to a bowl of chicken phở—with fragrant herbs and fresh scallions—and eating while pondering life, one finds that chicken phở has its own charm, quite different from beef phở.

The first thing one notices is that chicken phở is lighter: the meat is just enough, not too much. Among the noodles float small slices of chicken, a few yellowish strands of chicken skin, bright green stalks of scallions, pale herbs, and a few red chili slices— all bathed in a clear broth. The entire bowl carries the elegance of a warm, gentle young lady—if one compares beef phở to a robust young man exuding heroic spirit.

Usually, aside from sliced chicken, a bowl also contains bits of gizzard, liver, heart, and congealed blood to add a pleasant variety in color and texture.

2. Pantocrine, for the curious, was a Soviet-era tonic made from deer antlers and widely marketed in the twentieth century as a strengthening medicine.