Seafood Noodle Phô at Saigon Noodles in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget
I learned to love Vietnamese food when I lived and worked in downtown Chicago (Illinois) and ate at the Mekong House Restaurant after work. I had graduated with a degree in East Asian Studies from the University of Chicago and considered myself to be doing graduate work in Southeast Asian Studies when I ate at the Mekong House.
I mostly ate deep-fried egg rolls that I wrapped in a fresh mint leaf and tied with a string of fresh carrot before dipping them in sweet-and-sour sauce. The lemongrass chicken stir-fry I ate and loved was a close cousin to the Chinese stir-fries I also loved.
I did not venture into Vietnamese soups until I moved to Monterey County California and ate them at the Orient Restaurant in Seaside, California.
I like how phô soup has three layers of food items surrounded by delicious broth:
-half a bowl of rice noodles or glass noodles
-half a bowl full of sliced beef, sliced chicken, or seafood
-garnish toppings such as bean sprouts, fresh basil, lime wedges, and jalapeño slices
I recently tried seafood noodle soup (phô) at Saigon Noodles in Salinas, California and liked the large bowl of rice noodles and seafood ingredients that came with a container of broth that was large enough to fill the bowl twice.
The flavorful broth tasted like a bone broth that had been boiled with shrimp shells and strained. The soup was full of curled shrimp, scored squid slices, fish dumplings, fish balls, and imitation crab made from fish.
The soup came with packages of hoisin sauce for salt and sriracha for salt and spice. I like hot, spicy broth so I added sriracha to the soup.
Flavor and quantity of food in the seafood noodle soup (phô) at Saigon Noodles in Salinas, California make this dish a great deal for an international lunch.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
