Phở - Overrated, underrated, properly rated? | Saigon Sunday Sessions #14

Join me, Niall Mackay, and my guests Misha Smith, Adria Lopez Mackay, and Ben in a lively debate on the Vietnamese dish, Phở, in this episode of Saigon Sunday Sessions. We discuss the pronunciation, different types (Phở Gà and Phở Bò), and our personal experiences with the dish. 

Opinions vary, with arguments ranging from Phở being labeled as 'dirty dishwater with noodles' to it being considered an underrated culinary gem. 

We delve into the cultural significance of Phở, addressing misconceptions and contrasting it with other Vietnamese foods. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and join the Seven Million Bikes community on Patreon.

00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:26 Setting the Scene: Saigon Sunday Sessions
00:41 Segment Introduction: Underrated, Overrated, Properly Rated
01:21 Pho: The Great Debate Begins
02:06 Pho: Personal Experiences and Opinions
04:18 Pho: Cultural and Culinary Insights
09:56 Pho: Final Thoughts and Ratings
17:02 Conclusion and Farewell

7 Bridges Brewing Co. - An award winning Vietnamese craft brewery from Da Nang, with breweries across Vietnam!

Rabbit Hole Irish Sports Bar - Check out their new location on Tran Nao with the best views in the city over Landmark 81!

Transcript

Niall: 2:28

We are gonna do OVERRATED, UNDERRATED, PROPERLY RATED, The most important thing EVER!! Phở!

Ben: 2:35

It's dirty dishwater with noodles.

Mischa: 2:38

On the way home from a heavy night out, you have a bowl of pho bo, there's no hangover the next morning.

Niall: 2:43

Are you laughing because I nearly forgot what I was going to say there?

Adrie: 2:45

He's totally sober.

Niall: 2:46

I'm sotally tober. Welcome to another Saigon Sunday Sessions with me, your host, Niall Mackay. I'm with regulars Misha Smith and Adrian Lopez Mackay, who doesn't like being full named. And we're with Biscuit as well. We are in one of my favorite cocktail bars, Manny Cocktails. Uh, it might not be a Sunday, but this is a Saigon Sunday session, and we're gonna do one of my favorite segments today. So we're gonna do underrated, overrated. Overrated, underrated, properly rated. That one. I always say it wrong. And just remember, don't forget, turn on all the notifications, subscribe, leave a review, share this with someone else, do whatever you can. to help this podcast grow, and if you want to become part of the Seven Million Bikes community, and if you want to become a BopSaturday, then go to patreon. com forward slash a VNM podcast and become a BopSaturday. Are you laughing because I nearly forgot what I was going to say there? Maybe, but I'm really excited. So,

Adrie: 3:47

He's totally sober.

Niall: 3:48

I'm sotally tober are, uh, we're going to talk about So, so, so important, we are gonna do underrated, overrated, underrated, properly rated, the most important thing ever, Phở Fa? Misha. Yes. Before we, before we talk about this, if you are listening or watching this as a tourist, I have something really fucking important to tell you. It's not fo, okay. If I hear one more tourist call it fo, I'm gonna lose my shit. It's fa, and even then I'm probably saying it wrong, but it's not fo.

Adrie: 4:27

Fa. Fa.

Niall: 4:28

Fa. Yeah, like that. Okay. What are your thoughts on pho?

Mischa: 4:36

I fucking love a good bowl of pho. Um, some of my favorite times to have a bowl of pho is, uh, pho gà, which is obviously the chicken version. You say

Niall: 4:46

obviously, but for a lot of people they're like, that's no obviously.

Mischa: 4:50

Well, okay, well it's obvious to us. And that's also why I said it. Um, but yeah, like if I'm, you know, like, when you're a kid and you're sick, you have chicken noodle soup, good bowl of pho ga, when you're, when you're a little under the weather, dynamite. Uh, also, pho ba, which is obviously the, the beef version, which I think is a little bit more popular, a little bit more prevalent. On the way home from a heavy night out, you have a bowl of pho bo there's no hangover the next morning. All that broth and beef and noodles, awesome. Um, and also, anytime. Breakfast. Lunch, dinner, I'm, I think I'm tipping my hand here a little bit as to what my, uh, my rating's gonna be out of the three options. Um, but yeah, just to, sort of, to cut you guys off before the pass, I think it was at one point overrated, and there was such a strong backlash by expats, by foreigners, Uh, we're like, oh, that's just basic bitch Vietnamese. There's so much better Vietnamese food, bleh. It's become so, uh, disdained for being overrated that it's now underrated by most people because it's amazing. It's fucking amazing. We don't need to do the puns. Puns are the lowest form of humor. I know a lot of your audience is probably, uh, from the UK, where people love puns. I hate puns. Anyway! Puns wildly overrated. I love puns! Okay! You are so funny. I do love

Adrie: 6:26

it too. I

Mischa: 6:27

do love puns. Alright, let's stay on topic here.

Adrie: 6:30

I

Mischa: 6:30

think, I think there's been some It's such a backlash against pho by people who live here, who like want to make a point about which Vietnamese food they like better, that it's now criminally underrated.

Niall: 6:43

Interesting.

Mischa: 6:44

I'm happy to

Niall: 6:45

cede the floor to you guys. So, it's interesting, one of the things you said though, about breakfast and lunch. I've talked about this before. One of the things I love about Vietnamese food is it doesn't have a delineation, like in Canada, UK, America, you would never have cereal for dinner. You would very rarely have eggs for dinner. It'd be pretty, well, yeah, but it'd be pretty weird if you were like, let's have an egg omelet or like scrambled eggs for dinner. Even lunch, lunch is a sandwich. Dinner is up. whatever a dinner is. Whereas even this morning, I had baka for breakfast. Yeah. Which is beef stew, which I think is just the best thing in the world. I messaged my sister in Australia and I was like, I just had beef stew for breakfast. It's so weird. And like you say as well, like pho can be had for breakfast. People wouldn't blink an

Mischa: 7:40

eye. It can be half a lunch. I know there's a lot of good, like, local, like, not called local, obviously, but like, good, small, uh, photo stands that are only open for breakfast. Yeah. Like, it's breakfast food. Yeah. Like, they, they serve it through, like, maybe till, like, 11 a. m., and then they shut down. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well. And also, yeah, you can have it, yeah, you can have it anytime.

Niall: 8:01

And on the ladies day. 3 a. m. On the ladies day. Last episode I posted, somebody commented something that I didn't know and they were like, Pha used to be, what was it they said, it used to be a breakfast food in the north, it was a hot soup for breakfast, and now it's, it's now nationwide, it's not just Vietnam, it was a breakfast food in the north. And now nationwide is breakfast, lunch or dinner. So, as you mentioned, there's ph gà, which is chicken ph, ph bò, and very rarely ph chy, which is vegetarian ph. What are your thoughts on ph?

Adrie: 8:40

I really like ph. I don't think it's like massively overrated. I maybe am a little bit different.

Niall: 8:48

We got Ben that's joining us for this deep dive discussion. Adri is sharing her opinion on Pharr right now.

Adrie: 8:56

I'm a little bit different from Maybe a lot of Americans who I've encountered recently are, like in the recent times of a life, I didn't eat a lot of F before I came to the, uh, before I came to Vietnam. So I knew Vietnamese food was a thing. I knew f was a thing, but I just didn't have much F before I actually came to Vietnam. Also, I wasn't much of a meat eater. However, I think pho is really delicious. I was gonna say it's overrated, but I think it might be properly rated because it is still delicious here. And one of the things, when we have people visit us, Either we know them or we don't or we've met people and they're like, Oh, I came to Vietnam and I'm so excited about the pho. The pho in America. Oh, the pho as they normally do. Yeah, the pho in America is so good. It has all these vegetables in it and it has so many different things in it. I'm like, what the kind of pho are you eating? Pho has noodles and it has meat and it has herbs and it has spices and it has broth that has been cooking for two to three days. And that is it. It does not have. It does not have beans, and it does not have like, Oh, bean sprouts. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, bean sprouts. People are like, oh, it has corn, it has tomatoes, and it has like, Oh, fuck off. edamame, and all this weird ass shit. Broccoli, and like, I'm like, no, no, no. No, no, no. That ain't pho, Sally. No, no, no. So, I think if you have proper pho, It is properly, Rated. It is delicious. It is good for what it is. I don't think it's overrated. I don't think it's underrated. I think it's perfect.

Niall: 10:44

But talking about how if it has sweet corn in it or corn. So my sister lives in Australia and she messaged me this a few years ago and she's like, I'm going to a proper Vietnamese restaurant tonight. It's in downtown Melbourne, Midtown. Mid, what do we call it, CBA Melbourne. She's like, I'm going to this authentic Vietnamese restaurant. I was like, okay, cool, send me the menu. And it had, uh, had Thai on the menu. Thai green curry. Chinese vegetables. And I was like, Lindsay, this is, this is so far from authentic

Mischa: 11:16

Vietnamese food. Right, so the first time I was back in Toronto, after I'd moved here to Vietnam, my mom and dad were so excited to take me to this pho place. It's right behind their apartment. It's a great faux place that they found. I'm like, Ehhhhh I was a little skeptical. Showed up, the menu was a mixture of Korean, Vietnamese and Thai dishes. And, uh, the people running the place were Korean. And I could tell that because they were speaking Korean. I lived in Korea before I lived here. So I heard what they were saying, I didn't understand everything, but I got that they were speaking Korean. I said something to them in Korean, they looked at me like I was a alien, even though, like, you know, my Korean wasn't great. But it was good enough that I could, you know, hold up my end of the conversation, but they just, they didn't understand it coming out of a white person's mouth in Toronto. I was like, I don't know this guy. Weirdo. Anyway, uh, yeah, so I did not get the pho there, it was, you know, it was a Korean joint with, like, Vietnamese and Thai options. Um, But yeah, I was a little, uh, it, it broke my heart a little bit to have to tell my mom that this was not a traditional Vietnamese restaurant that we were in.

Niall: 12:22

Anyway,

Mischa: 12:24

got it.

Niall: 12:25

Alright, Ben, you just joined us. Far, underrated, overrated, properly rated. What do you think? Wait, wait, wait till Andrew

Ben: 12:32

finishes coughing.

Adrie: 12:33

I'm fine.

Ben: 12:35

I think most people like pho. I mean, it's difficult to not like pho when you get here. So hadn't really appreciated pho. However, I still think it's overrated. It's, it's, it's, it's dirty dishwater with noodles. Yet it's comforting. Yet it's comforting. It's beefy broth with noodles. I mean, I think it's really hard to make it more impressive than that, um, I'd say the same for Banh Mi, I mean we could talk about overrated, underrated, but Banh Mi is a sandwich that the Brits have, uh, have mastered for many, many years. It's bread, with meat, and vegetables, ooooh, lettuce and stuff. Controversially, uh, I think Had you ever had pho before you came to Vietnam? Actually, no.

Niall: 13:30

No. No. No. And is it something, like, iconic? Like, you remember having your first pho here?

Ben: 13:37

So, the, the thing that, so I eat pho a lot, so this is why You do eat it a lot! Yeah, yeah, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not saying, like, I don't eat it, I'm just saying it, I think it's Iconic, I think makes it overrated. I think, um, for me, I eat fur 24, which, uh That's why you

Mischa: 13:58

think

Ben: 13:58

it's overrated, you eat shitty fur. Hang on, I've had the more expensive fur, and I see little difference. Can we just Can you please explain what is F. A. R. T. 24? Or

Niall: 14:10

the more expensive F. A. R. T. Or the more expensive F. A.

Ben: 14:12

R. T. So the way I see F. A. R. T. 24 is the, is the mass chain. You know, they have like the It's the McDonald's of F. A. R. T. Yeah, exactly. And then I guess the do that job? I think the, uh, the premium F. A. R. T. is you go to like the Michelin and, uh, Is it, what's it called, Anam or, uh Anam. Yeah. And they use better beef. Which is, which is great, but it's still, it's still beef broth with noodles and, and nice beef. So, uh, for me, like, I think overrated. Overrated.

Niall: 14:47

So, final opinion, I think pho is overrated,

Mischa: 14:51

this whole conversation that you three are having is proving what I said, is that it's, it's being considered overrated by so many people that it's now become criminally underrated. Flo is amazing. You guys are nuts. This guy just said that British sandwiches are better than Vietnamese sandwiches. Should be put in jail. I, I, I made my point. I made my point at the beginning of the video, and I think it stands, and you guys can say whatever you want. So, so I think you do make a good point. In the immortal words of the poet warrior T. Swift, Player's gonna play, play, play, play, play, and hater's gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. But us followers, we're just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake it off. Shake it off.

Niall: 15:31

I do, I do agree with a lot of what you're saying. I do think it is overrated because, there's things like, have you guys seen the King of Queens? There's like Kevin James, where he has like a sip of it. It's so, I hate that one. He's like, this is fucking amazing. And you're like, dude, it's just soup. Like you said, it's like dirty water. It's just soup. That's so crazy, Hunting. That it's dirty dish water? Like that's stupid. But I don't disagree so much. It doesn't mean it tastes bad though, because the best Far is the one that is the dirtiest dishwater. So

Mischa: 16:03

I just, just last week I was gonna, my bank, uh, it was lunchtime, so it was closed. So I was wandering down the street. You are the bank? Yeah. Whoa. So, and there was, I saw like Michelin Select, it was like this little fo shop. They were packed, obviously, from this thing. Yeah. So the service was a little frantic. They didn't have enough people on the place, packs the tickets. It's full. And I got the Pho Dak Viet, which is like four different kinds of meat, four different kinds of beef. And it was great. So how can it be overrated if it's amazing?

Niall: 16:32

I'll finish my opinion. My opinion is I think it's overrated because people think it's just amazing. Obviously I've been here for so long. There's so many foods I just love. Bun Thit Nung is one of my favourites. Just because there's other good

Mischa: 16:48

Vietnamese food doesn't mean that Pho is less good.

Niall: 16:50

There is amazing other good food than me. But, recently, one of the funniest things happened. Did you say content? Can you just wait and stop

Mischa: 16:59

talking, man? I'm fired up!

Niall: 17:02

Sorry, go ahead. One of the funniest things that happened recently is that I took, I took a friend, which you can see the video, I took a friend to Newland Bakery on Ham Ney, which is one of the first places I'd ever been to, and we were just looking at the menu and we were both like oh, fa, ba, oh, like we were looking at all the things. We didn't order anything and then out of nowhere two bowls of pho bar just landed in front of us and we both looked each other like We we didn't order this

Adrie: 17:31

But the

Niall: 17:32

guy obviously held us like talking about it. So we're like, oh it We'll just have it and i'm not gonna lie. It was the first time pho in so long, it was amazing, it was so delicious. So it's something I don't order often, so I do think it is overrated because people think of Vietnamese food and they just think of pho. Nobody thinks of it. Like overseas, no one's like, oh, I want some cum tam or I want some bún tht nưng. But they don't know. But when I did have this pho recently, I was like, okay, shit, it's pretty good.

Mischa: 18:03

Comptime is crazy overrated, it's pork and rice. Ha

Adrie: 18:06

ha ha, wrong episode.

Mischa: 18:10

Alright, so, fa, criminally underrated. Fa?

Adrie: 18:14

Uh I have to go in the middle, properly rated.

Niall: 18:17

Properly rated?

Adrie: 18:18

Yeah, cause I think it's massively overrated, but Also, sometimes, Freebie!

Ben: 18:29

Ben? Very comforting, often tasty, overrated. Yeah.

Niall: 18:38

Yeah.

Ben: 18:39

And now

Niall: 18:39

go, I think pho is overrated, so. I think by consensus we say pho is overrated, but. It's

Adrie: 18:47

not the consensus. Overrated?

Niall: 18:49

Overrated. Overrated. Do you know what? That's not what the word

Adrie: 18:55

consensus means.

Niall: 18:55

Probably rated. Underrated. So two people said overrated. That's not what consensus means. In the words of Donald Trump, this was a massive consensus. We won by millions of votes. Absolute landslide. Tha is criminally overrated. And if you disagree, If you disagree, I will take you to court, and I will have a showdown with you. Uh, thank you very much Donald Trump for being able to just basically make anything we want it to be. If you disagree, tell us in the comments, tell Biscuit what you think. Thank you very much for Ben, for turning in the last minute. Thank you for Misha, Adri, as always, remember, follow, subscribe, turn on notifications, and go to patreon. com forward slash vnampodcast, become what?

Mischa: 19:48

POPSTAR LADY!

Niall: 19:51

Bob's Howdy! Support the podcast, you'll get episodes early. And thank you very much. Cheers!