pho-king

San Francisco dining guide

Here's a guide to San Francisco dining (384k PDF) that I made for a client last year. A few pho suggestions in there, and plenty more. Hope it is useful!

Breakfast Pho in the South Bay?

reader TC Altus writes:

I constantly crave pho in the mornings. Yes, very proper I know. However, it seems that in the US, you can't get pho before 10am! Where in the south bay can I have pho for breakfast (preferably near downtown San Jose)?

Oakland, CA pho?

Wanted: suggestions for the best pho in Oakland, California. Bonus points for good Viet or other good Asian supermarket recommendations (no Ranch 99 please).

#1 Bay Area Pho+?

No, that is not a typo ... I meant to type it as 'pho+?'. It's the non-technical, non-Unicode way for doing a Vietnamese alphabet. The 'o' has a funny squiggly thing coming out of it and another squiggly thing on top of it that looks like a question mark without the dot. Pho+? is commonly pronounced by us non-Vietnamese speakers as 'pho,' which rhymes with toe. The correct way to pronounce it rhymes with 'saw' with a dip in tone, which quickly rises back up at the middle of the 'a' ... But then, what do I know?! My native Vietnamese roommate heckles at my poor pronunciation all the time...

But what I do know is a good bowl of pho+?. I've been running around the Bay Area in the past few months looking for the best bowl. And yesterday, I had the most amazing bowl of pho+? at Beef Noodle #1 in San Jose. Yes, the name of the store really is Beef Noodle #1. And they are #1. The soup combined the best parts of my previous #1 bowl, Pho+? Ao Sen, and the runner-up, Pho+? Y. My bowl of pho+? at #1 was motherly yet powerful, nourishing while packing a punch. It was the perfect bowl of soupy goodness.

The small bowl seemed like it was on the small side, but that was because I ate it so quickly since it was irresistibly good.  I slurped the entire bowl within minutes of starting, and I left no drops of the soup behind. The noodles had just enough chewiness to provide a lovely presence to the soup, and the noodles wore the soup like Donatella in her best Versace dress. The meats (my standard tai nam gau) all had different textures that added pure joy to the already delicious package.

That makes my Bay Area Pho+? ranking as: 

Champion: Beef Noodle #1 (San Jose)
2. Pho+? Ao Se'n (Oakland)
Tied 3. Pho+? Y (San Jose)
Tied 3. Pho+? Hoa Lao (Oakland)
4. Turtle Tower (SF)
5. Pho+? Binh (Sunnyvale)

and countless other Pho+? shops that didn't quite make the list ... This is entirely my opinion, but my Vietnamese roommate seconds the choices. And, to make things fair, I always get the same thing at all pho+? shops. Tai nam gau, tai nam gau, tai nam gau ... It's my pho+? mantra.

Wherefore the Veggie Pho

A reader in West Los Angeles who will soon be spending some time in San Francisco asks a question that can only be answered by you, dear readers: wherefore the veggie pho? Can anyone recommend good vegetarian pho in either city - not gha, not beef-broth pho without slices of tai, but real vegetarian broth, rice noodles and all the other acoutrements of pho - without the meat?

San Francisco Pho

The San Francisco Chronicle provides a round up of the best spots for pho in San Francisco's Little Saigon.

[Editor's note: the folks over at the San Francisco Chronicle did not realize that their own republication policy was different than SFGate's policy of actually encouraging links. We had removed this article at their request; now that everyone's clear on the SFGate policy, it's back up.]

East Bay phở

Jonathan Kauffman profiles Huong Que, an Oakland restaurant that specializes in the non-beef variety of our favorite dish in the most recent issue of the East Bay Express. Anyone eaten here yet?

SF Gate does pho

A quick & easy read by Mai Pham over at the San Francisco Chronicle on pho and the importance of food & family in Viet culture. A recipe is included.

'I Can't Move To A City Without Pho'

Currently, I live in Pho Heaven, aka the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area. I can indulge my pho whims everyday and still not hit every pho restaurant in the area. Is there anything better? Soon, though, we will be moving from San Francisco to Portland, Oregon. We are moving for my husband J.'s job. When we were considering Portland, we knew almost nothing about the city and knew absolutely no one that lived there. Since then, we've visited twice, met some nice people, and explored the city fairly thoroughly. Before he accepted the job, however, I told J. that there was absolutely no way I was moving to Portland if they didn't have pho. I can't live in a city without pho. That simple fact would have been the deal-breaker for me.