CHOPSTICKSPHOGRILL

Soup is customarily served for breakfast in Vietnam-big bowls of steaming noodle soup, with meat and any number of ingredients added at the last minute, like bean sprouts, cilantro, basil, chili peppers, lime slices, and green onions. All, of course, spiced with with plenty of fish sauce (nuoc mam), chili-garlic sauce, and/or hoisin sauce in nearby dipping dishes. It's an unusual melange of cooked rice noodles, raw vegetables and herbs, and shaved raw meat or seafood that cooks in the broth just as it's brought to table. Phó, as it's known, is now hugely popular in the United States-and people line up at the doors of Phó restaurants night and day to sit at trencher tables and feast on the soup til sweat pours down the backs of their heads. The term phó translates as "your own bowl," since it's one of the few meals where the food is not passed around and shared. "Small" soups, by contrast, are served as first courses-they generally don't have noodles; they're served in small portions;..

Primary location: Williamsburg United States