One Fat Chef: Vietnamese all around the boroughs: Queens Installment

Vietnamese food is one of my top three favorites. I love their combinations of fish sauce, shrimp paste, fresh cilantro, and lemon. I love all the hot soupy noodles and grilled meats.

I grew up eating at the Pho Bang in Elmhurst, Queens. Pho Bang is a chain Vietnamese restaurant but they are not all created equal. Hands down the one in elmhurst is the best. According to my mom it was around before I was born so it has to be atleast 27 years old. It's sort of a shithole in the wall place with sticky floors and cooks who hollar at you from the back door but they make the best Pho broth in town!

I love the Pho here. Pho broth is typically made with simmered beef bones, oxtail, flank steak, onions, and spices such as cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and ginger. Sounds like a lot of flavor in a pot but really once its all melted together it's very mellow. A bowl comes with rice noodles and whichever types of meats you want like thinly sliced raw beef steak, fatty flank, lean flank, brisket, tendons, and tripe and a plate of bean sprouts, lemon wedges, and basil to be added as you like. I like the #27 Tai Nam Gan (combination rice noodles, beef soup w/fresh eye of round, navel, and tendon) because I love me some tendon. Don't forget to order the #2 Cha Gio (Vietnamese Crispy Spring Rolls- Deep fried rolls wrapped in rice paper with a mixture of pork, chicken, crabmeat, black mushroom and clear rice noodles). At your table you wrap these delicious golden crispy spring rolls in lettuce and dip it into Nuoc Cham which is a sauce made out of fermented fish sauce.

Some of my other favorites are:
#4 Goi Cuon- summer rolls- rolls wrapped in rice paper with cooked shrimp, slices of pork, green leaves, mint leaves, bean sprouts, rice noodles and is served with a peanut dipping sauce

#47 Com Suon Nuong- grilled pork chop on rice

#48 Com Ga Nuong- grilled chicken on rice

#64 Bo Luc Lac- beef cubes served on rice

Don't forget to order a drink too!
#92 Ca Phe Sua Nong- espresso slow drip filtered at your table with condensed milk

#93 Ca Phe Sua Da- espresso slow drip filtered at your table on ice with condensed milk

#98 Tra Sua- Tea with condensed milk (ask for it iced!)

*click on the menus for viewing