Friend or Pho Restaurant

Friend or Pho

I've found the idea of consuming a literal vat of steaming hot noodle soup to be quite appealing. Many of my associates tempted me for months with steamy stories of this boiling, delicious wonder of a dish. Eventually I gave in and made my way to the nearest and greatest Vietnamese pho restaurant in Seattle: Pho Binh.

Now one of my favorite local haunts, I usually make it in time for the lunch rush on a busy weekday. Pho Binh is a trendy hot spot for University of Washington college students, local business professionals, and a surprisingly large number of Vietnamese families. The smell of jasmine tea, incense, and steaming beef stock permeates the air. It is a warm, inviting, and almost third world place. You order off the menu which is more like a picture book. $5.00 per bowl is a difficult price to beat anywhere else in town. Moments later, an enormous mixing-bowl sized vat of boiling hot beef noodle soup is set before you. It smells of fresh basil, onion, scallions, and lime. Delicious.

Pho restaurants have been popping up around the Seattle area like hot cakes recently. The Vietnamese communities have been flooding to the Northwest in droves after the economy crashed in 2008 and cheap real estate opportunities opened up. Vietnamese food has become another "foodie" trend in Seattle like the cheese steak is to Philadelphia, or street vendors are to New York City. It's affordable, fast, and fantastic. One might even say that it's heavenly.

It's been said that pho is the quintessential rainy Seattle day dining experience. When the weather turns cold and wet, nothing makes you feel better than a hot bowl of beef noodle soup; a steaming bowl of slow cooked beef and onion broth stewed for hours with delicious herbs and spices. Top the dish with fresh, crisp bean-sprouts, basil leaves, sliced jalapenos, a lime wedge, savory Hoisin sauce, and Sriratcha hot sauce. The chefs at Pho Binh are new American citizens, fresh off the plane from Ho Chi Minh City. They cook the broth in gargantuous pots until it is boiling hot, so hot that when they pour it over the raw meat, dry noodles, raw vegetables, and serve it immediately, the bowl's contents are cooked through by the time the waiter reaches your table.

Pho Binh leads the standard amongst delicious ethnic restaurants in the Northwest. Don't expect any of your servers to speak English, but please, expect a great bowl of soup. Perhaps you will see me there as I have hopped on the trend food wagon and become sort of a regular.

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