Good Afternoon Vietnam

If any media figure is having a positive influence on me lately, it would have to be chef/writer/adventurous eater Anthony Bourdain. Because of him, I'm giving my kids less fast food and really trying to experience out-of-the-ordinary cuisine in my community. Nothing too radical, admittedly, but the point is that a burrito made in a non-franchise restaurant is going to be more natural and more flavorful than, say, Taco Bell.

Last night I took the kids to a small family Italian restaurant we'd been to maybe a year earlier with some friends. Decent pizza, nothing special (though the pasta sounded better on the menu), but in the same shopping center I noticed a Vietnamese pho restaurant, pho being a noodle soup I'd seen on one of Bourdain's No Reservations shows and something I'd since wanted to try. We're pretty lucky in Southern California to have a lot of cultures and a general acceptance or curiosity about their cuisines that we can support lots of different kinds of restaurants. This was actually the second pho restaurant I'd noticed in the past week, just commuting.

Pho is a hearty soup with a huge clump of skinny rice noodles and a thin but complex broth in a large bowl. I'd guess soy formed the backbone of the broth but there were undoubtedly several other ingredients as well. Oh, and you can get it plain or with chicken, shrimp, meatballs or various beef parts. I wanted to get the whole experience, so I ordered the one with rare sliced beef, well-done beef, meatballs, tendon and tripe. Tripe is the stomach lining of cattle. Yeah, it wasn't that I was really looking forward to the last two parts, but I wanted to say I'd tried them, you know? One constant them in Bourdain's TV work and books is a respect for cultures who out of necessity have figured out how to make the least appetizing parts of animals into something tasty. After all, it's not that hard to make a ribeye taste good, but tendon?

Pho is a collaborative effort between cook and customer. You finish it off at your table, adding as much fresh basil leaves, lime and bean sprouts as you'd like, not to mention chili and/or fish sauce (at least I think that was what was in the squeeze bottle). The result is a heady brew guaranteed to clear your sinuses and leave you fortified and full. I had a little trouble getting it in my mouth--they provided only resusable green plastic chopsticks, which lacked the helpful woodgrain to give the wet noodles some traction. I got the hang of it, though. The beef was fine though nothing special. There were only a few thin slices of tripe and they were okay, inoffensive. The little pieces I took to be tendon--wiry bit of pink meat welded to a chunk of fat--received just a little nibble and the rest stayed in the bowl. I enjoyed it, though, and it's also kind of nice to eat alone at an odd time for lunch--2:30--because you receive such good service. The spring rolls with peanut sauce were excellent.