Nothing But Words

The New Town Hall (Neues Rathaus) in Marienplatz, Munich12-Aug-2009 18:02SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.00625 sec, ISO 100	The New Town Hall (Neues Rathaus) in Marienplatz, Munich12-Aug-2009 18:03SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.01 sec, ISO 100	The Old Town Hall in Marienplatz, Munich12-Aug-2009 18:18SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.0020 sec, ISO 100
The west side of the Residence Palace – the original building was severely damaged in WWII, and was rebuilt with most of the original architectural details missing12-Aug-2009 18:36SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.01 sec, ISO 100	Eidan in the Apothekenhof courtyard of the Residence Palace12-Aug-2009 18:45SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.00625 sec, ISO 100	The Feldherrnhalle in Odeonsplatz, Munich12-Aug-2009 18:59SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.0020 sec, ISO 100
The Theatinerkirche church in Odeonsplatz, Munich (this is a clumsy stitch of two photos, as I couldn’t get back far enough to get the whole building in one photo)12-Aug-2009 18:57SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.0025 sec, ISO 100	The neoclassical Banqueting Hall wing (Festsaalbau) of the Residence Palace12-Aug-2009 19:02SONY DSC-W55, 3.5, 9.4mm, 0.0025 sec, ISO 100	Eidan and Kai in the Hofgarten12-Aug-2009 19:04SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.00625 sec, ISO 100
The Temple of Diana in the Hofgarten12-Aug-2009 19:06SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.0050 sec, ISO 100	The Bavarian State Chancellery on the east end of the Hofgarten12-Aug-2009 20:44SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.0050 sec, ISO 100	Not only was there a Vietnamese restaurant in the Munich Central Station, they served pho!12-Aug-2009 17:39SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.025 sec, ISO 250

If there is one thing I could change about our trip this summer, I would have spent more time in Munich. We scheduled it as only a stop-over between Legoland and Plzeň. We arrived in the early evening in the modern and busy Munich Central Station, hungry for dinner. I was about to resign myself to Burger King when I noticed that not only was there a small Vietnamese restaurant, but they served pho! It actually wasn’t bad either (for traveling pho hunters, the restaurant is named Asia and it’s on the ground floor – see the final picture in the set above). We then took a subway to where we thought our hotel was, but it wasn’t there. After wandering around for a while with luggage and kids in tow, trying to find it, we finally surrendered to the idea of taking a cab.

After a decent night’s sleep in our tiny hotel room’s bunk beds, we had just a few hours to explore before our train to Plzeň. We didn’t have a chance to do any tourism research before arriving, and unlike Budapest, we couldn’t get online in our hotel room to do last minute planning. The hotel desk attendant gave us a map and some flyers written in German, and so we set out on our most poorly planned venture yet.

But we actually did well. With so little time available, we decided to take the subway to Marienplatz, and then explore on foot from there. After being suitably dazzled by the New Town Hall (Neues Rathaus – I’m not so sure it’s a coincidence that the name for a building full of politicians sounds an awful lot like rat house in English), we headed north to the sprawling Residence Palace. Then we hunted for lunch and a bathroom through Odeonsplatz and the Hofgarten. The day was warm and sunny – the boys got some badly needed running around time in the garden area, and we had a nice lunch in an adjacent outdoor Italian restaurant. After lunch we hurried back to the subway, which got us to the Central Station just in time for our train to Plzeň.

So we got only a small taste of Munich, but it struck both Maria and I as a very pleasant and livable city.

Pho at the Dong Do restaurant Pho at the Dong Do restaurant05-Aug-2009 19:44SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.025 sec, ISO 200

Shopping outlets in Little Hanoi Shopping outlets in Little Hanoi05-Aug-2009 20:53SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.0025 sec, ISO 100

On the bus to Prague’s Little Hanoi – the Soviet-era buildings have been painted with cheerful colors05-Aug-2009 18:56SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.0040 sec, ISO 100

Going to get some pho with Peter and Tai05-Aug-2009 19:10SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.0025 sec, ISO 100

Tai told me that the Little Hanoi markets in Prague are made to look just like the ones in Vietnam05-Aug-2009 20:56SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.025 sec, ISO 200

Getting the first bee sting of your life while alone at a bus station in a foreign country, not being able to find the friends you were planning to meet, and knowing you’re about to miss the bus you can’t find, isn’t the best way to start the day.

I was supposed to meet Tai – one of Maria’s students – and Peter – a Prague native who was assisting Maria with the student activities. Our destination was Little Hanoi – the Vietnamese community on the southern outskirts of Prague. I knew which bus we were supposed to take, but I couldn’t find it. Luckily Tai found me just a minute before the bus was leaving (it was at a small terminal hidden behind a wall of tall shrubs). We ran back to the bus and got on just in time. The ride was about 30 minutes, and it was my first time venturing out of Prague’s tourist areas. As we left Smichov station, the beautiful old buildings gave way to row upon row of communist-era concrete apartment buildings. Peter explained to me that after the Velvet Revolution, President Václav Havel hoped that people would abandon these buildings (he referred to them as “rabbit cages”). But as drab and unpleasant as they were, people had been living in them for decades and had created communities around them. So instead the buildings are being renovated and painted bright, cheerful colors.

While Peter educated Tai and I about the history of the area, we educated him about Vietnam. My knowledge of Vietnam is limited to two subjects: the Vietnam War, which I studied off and on for years, and phở – Vietnamese beef noodle soup – my favorite food. But Tai did most of the talking, since he is a 2nd generation Vietnamese-American. Tai was also our ticket into Little Hanoi: to get in, you have to pass through an entrance and either 1. have a wholesale vendor’s license, or 2. look Vietnamese (or be with someone who looks Vietnamese).

It turned out the “Sapa” building at the entrance used to be an office building where Peter had worked many years ago, and he hadn’t been back in at least 10 years. So for him it was an unusual experience, coming to a place that was familiar in some ways and very unfamiliar in others. As for me, I was happy that the pain in my hand from the bee sting had subsided (but since it was my first sting, the swelling and itching had just begun).

Our first stop was the Dong Do restaurant for lunch, which of course meant phở. Peter was very curious, as he had never had Vietnamese food before, and I was excited to have my first bowl of phở in Europe. It was a restaurant with a full menu, not a specialty phở shop, so the phở wasn’t amazing, but it was still very enjoyable. One of the best aspects of phở is there’s something about it that inspires lively conversation. Peter told us stories of life under communism, and Tai shared stories of his father’s life in the South Vietnamese army during the Vietnam War.

After lunch Tai took us for a quick tour around the markets (this was his second trip to Little Hanoi). It’s primarily a wholesale, business-to-business district, not a retail market, so there’s nothing especially attractive about the surroundings, which consisted of simple concrete and metal buildings. They primarily sold imported clothing, which wasn’t something I needed, but it was still fun to look around.

If you’re visiting Prague and want to venture out to Little Hanoi, the article here has more information, as well as directions. Remember though, you need to either look Asian or have a local vendor’s license to get in. There’s also another group of Vietnamese shops in Prague 4, described here.

The “I Love Phở” tour in Australia

For my readers in Australia (who probably number somewhere between 0 and 1), check out the “I Love Phở” tour. I received this announcement from the person organizing it, and thought I’d pass it along.

I Love Phở uses Phở as a metaphor to interpret and reveal a Việt Nam whose people and history are as varied and complex as the preparation and cooking of a bowl of Phở itself. Through its own global journey, Phở is unique, flexible and versatile in borrowing, adapting, modifying, ultimately creating its own culinary experience. It challenges all notions of the hybrid, traditional and authentic where adaptation, migration and movement are common in an era of intense globalisation.

I Love Phở combines the work of seven artists; a catalogue including essays, non-fictions, recipes and poems written by well-known Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese writers; guided tours; Phở tasting and Phở cooking demonstrations. This aims to create dialogues between visual artists, local communities and broader audiences exploring issues of identity, history, culture and diaspora over a bowl of Phở. Each destination also includes the work of local artists commissioned specifically for the exhibition.

The Com Pho (コム フォー) restaurant in the Marunouchi OAZO Shopping Center, near Tokyo station The Com Pho (コム フォー) restaurant in the Marunouchi OAZO Shopping Center, near Tokyo station14-May-2007 18:28Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 2.8, 5.40625mm, 0.01666666 sec,

The flavors of pho at Com Pho bear little resemblance to traditional Vietnamese pho The flavors of pho at Com Pho bear little resemblance to traditional Vietnamese pho14-May-2007 18:31Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 2.8, 5.40625mm, 0.125 sec,

It’s been a long time since I’ve written a pho review. I have a backlog of a few I’ve been meaning to write (two more in Philly and one in San Mateo), and hopefully I’ll get to those soon. But for now I’ll weave my talk of pho with my ongoing talk of Tokyo. Pho is not easy to find in Japan. While the Vietnamese diaspora in Tokyo is big enough to sustain at least a few Vietnamese restaurants, you usually need to go to a specialty shop to get good pho. Thanks to the dazzling pho-king site, I was aware of at least one pho restaurant in Tokyo. Unfortunately, I never made it there – it would have been an excursion to get there from where we lived, and it just never made it to the top of the list. But I did stumble across the Com Pho stand in the basement of the Marunouchi Oazo shopping center, located across the street from Tokyo station. Com Pho is a chain with four locations in Tokyo, but I haven’t been to the others.

I was visiting the shopping center with the family, but couldn’t persuade them to join me for pho. So I sat with them while they ate Chinese food next door, and then I got pho take out afterwards. Like many inexpensive restaurants in Japan, you order at Com Pho by putting your money in a vending machine and pushing the button for the food you want, and then the machine gives you a ticket that you take to the counter. It saves the restaurant staff from spending time behind a cash register. If you want a drink, they have free water, or you can get your own drink from one of the ubiquitous soda machines that are on every block in Tokyo.

When I go to a pho restaurant, I have certain expectations. One of them is that they serve pho. I found myself baffled by the Com Pho menu: it had four choices, and none of them resembled any kind of pho I was familiar with. The staff was not Vietnamese, none of the broths appeared similar to traditional pho broth, and the soups were filled with vegetables like asparagus and broccoli. So, it turned out to be a typical Japanese bastardization of foreign food. Another example is pizza: if you’ve ever had pizza in Japan, you know that they typically put things like mayonnaise, corn, nori (dried seaweed), and Tabasco sauce on it.

I decided to go for the green curry pho. It was actually much more like a Thai soup, with a coconut milk-based broth, ground meat, and lots of basil. For that reason I’m not giving it a rating, since it simply was not pho. But that didn’t stop me from enjoying it. It was quite tasty, and I hadn’t had any Vietnamese or Thai food in the 5 months we had lived in Tokyo, so it was a nice change of pace.

Location: The Marunouchi Oazo shopping center site’s access page has a couple PDFs that show you how to find the shopping center. Com Pho is on the basement floor. The phone number is 03-3216-0564, but be ready to speak Japanese!

Rating:

4248 Spruce St
Philadelphia, PA 19104
(215) 222-6800

As the only source of Pho within walking distance of my office in University City, this greasy spoon gets a free extra half star in its rating. In fact, I think it’s the only pho in the city west of the Schuylkill River (after moving here two years ago I was dumbfounded when I learned that it’s pronounced “skoo-gull” – go figure). What’s visible in the restaurant from a patron’s perspective hovers just on the sticky edge of sanitary. It’s a small restaurant, seating about 25, and I’m told that until recently it had a tattered “Grand Opening” banner festooned across its front wall for about 2 years. I went with a couple co-workers who were already familiar the place, and as we placed our order, the waitress sounded so profoundly bored I was worried she was going to stroll out into the traffic after leaving our table, just to put some excitement in her day.

Having said all that, the pho actually wasn’t bad. Fortunately, the numerous drops of oil floating on the surface of the pho (not something you normally see) didn’t seem to affect the flavor. The main thing they got right was the meat – it was of a decent quality and it wasn’t overcooked or undercooked. My only complaint with the meat was that they didn’t have lean brisket on the menu – if you wanted brisket, you had to go with the fat brisket . The noodles and the extras (sprouts, basil, etc.) were all fine. But they failed to inspire where it counts the most: the broth. The broth is the hardest thing to get right with pho, and it’s the most important thing to get right. The broth wasn’t bad, but it was bland, lacking the complex flavor that defines a good bowl of pho.

For me the main attraction of Pho Cafe Saigon is that I can go there for lunch without disrupting my work day. But if you’re not limited to the University City area, then I’d say head down Washington Ave to Pho 75.

Rating:

1122 Washington Ave
Philadelphia, PA 19147
(215) 271-5866

Pho 75 is, for me, where it all began. To my knowledge, Pho 75 is one of only two pho chain restaurants (by that I mean more than just 2 or 3 locations). Pho 75 has 7 locations – they’re in Philly, Maryland and Virginia. The location in Arlington, VA is where I had my first bowl of pho, about 11 years ago. I haven’t been to the Arlington shop in many years, but I usually found it maddening to go there, because the quality of the pho was so inconsistent. I’ve had my best bowl of pho there, and many mediocre bowls as well. Now that I live in Philly, I’ve been to the South Philly location many times, and I’m happy to report that the quality of its pho is consistently high. Not the best ever, but definitely excellent.

Embedded in a Vietnamese shopping center, it has the perfect location. When I bring my family, after we eat we’ll wade through the crowd at the always crowded adjacent grocery store. Kai and I will ogle the lobsters and crabs crawling around in their tanks, and Maria will stock up on Asian cooking ingredients – the kind you won’t find at Acme. And I always find myself wandering through the trinket shops, awestruck by the airbrushed, glowing, back-lit wall hangings depicting rivers flowing through forests, with built-in sound effects of rushing water and chirping birds (and inside there’s some kind of rotating element that makes it look like the water is flowing). How, and more importantly, why, did somebody create this? Philly only has one of these shopping centers, and compared to the various sprawling “Little Saigon” centers in the San Francisco Bay Area, it’s tiny. Even though there’s no Ranch 99 market (with the priceless slogan “we try harder for 100!”), the character is the same, and that’s what’s important.

The inside of the South Philly Pho 75 is cleaner than your average pho shop, but it has the standard array of long tables, fast service, and absolutely no decor of any kind. The soup is excellent in every respect: good broth, properly cooked noodles, and quality cuts of meat. On my most recent trip I went with my Indian co-worker Anand – he said he felt like he was in a typical restaurant in India, so I guess that means it has an “international” feel . It’s always fun to indoctrinate a pho newbie – hot sauce or chili peppers? lemon or lime? how much basil, hoisin sauce, and sprouts to add? One of the great things about pho is how much you can tweak the flavor after it’s been served to you. After just one trip, Anand has become a phonatic, insisting that we must go back every other Friday. If that’s not a sign of a good bowl, I don’t know what is.

Rating:

Address:
2270 Kuhio Ave
Honolulu, HI 96815
808-922-2668

I’ll use the occasion of our Hawaii trip to provide the first of my pho reviews. Kai fell asleep after we got back from Sea Life Park, I didn’t have much for lunch, and it was still a long time until dinner. So I set out in search of pho. Oahu has a number of pho shops. There are several in Chinatown, as well as a few scattered just past the western edge of Waikiki. On the day we arrived in Honolulu, we got a ride with a Vietnamese taxi driver, and he recommended Pho Bac 1 in Chinatown, but I didn’t have the opportunity to eat there. There’s only one pho shop in Waikiki itself, and that’s Pho Old Saigon, conveniently located on Kuhio Ave, about 60 ft. from the Marine Surf where we were staying, so I didn’t have to go far. It actually had a full menu of Vietnamese dishes, but pho was the feature dish.

Service was fast with a minimum of friendliness, and the decor was minimal – exactly the sort of things I expect in a good pho resutaurant. In the middle of touristy Waikiki, my expectations were low, but I received a quality bowl of pho. There was nothing unique about the flavor, but everything was above average: the broth was very good, they used quality meat, and the noodles weren’t overcooked. I ate there twice, and it was just as good the second time, so they also get good marks for consistency.

Update: I ended up abandoning this project, because of lack of time, and the rise of the excellent pho-king site.

In an earlier post I mentioned a new site I’m working on – phonatic.org. My goal is to make it THE pho destination site on the web (pho is Vietnamese beef noodle soup). One thing going for it already is that there’s no competition (if you Google “pho” you won’t find much beyond individual restaurant sites and recipes). The main feature will be restaurant reviews. For the traveler seeking pho, the site will be a godsend, as there are few things that are more satisfying than a good bowl of pho, and few things more disappointing than a bad one. I’m hoping that the content will be community driven, so I won’t have to do much beyond admin once the site is up and running.

I’ve been building the site with TikiWiki, but it’s been an exercise in frustration, so I’m going to try something else. I started with TikiWiki because I was unfamiliar with CMS (content management systems) and TikiWiki was the first one I came across. I was dazzled by the massive feature set. But TikiWiki is just big and ugly. The installation requires installing the files for all the features, even if you only want to use a fraction of them – it can really eat into your disk quota. The admin screens are a maze, and it takes a lot of effort to become familiar with where all the controls are. Many of the included themes don’t really work (bad css), and it’s fairly opaque in terms of understanding the modularity (i.e. figuring out how to customize anything involves a lot of hacking). Even with the nicer themes, it also just doesn’t look very good.

So I’ve been exploring some other options. I was on the verge of installing PHP Nuke, but then I found XOOPS. XOOPS looks like it’s very lean and modular. It appears to have a slower development cycle than PHP Nuke, which is a good thing (with only a handful of new versions of the core each year, module developers have a more stable environment to work in). Also, it seems to have a smaller and more professional community of developers – there aren’t a bazillion maybe-it-works-maybe-it-doesn’t add-on modules, and from what I can see the add-ons they do have are fairly stable. Lastly, it looks like someone already developed a “reviews” module, which may save me some work (XOOPS, like most CMS systems, comes with a built-in news/articles module, but that doesn’t quite provide everything you need for doing something like restaurant reviews).

If anyone reading this knows a thing or two about any other good CMS options, feedback is appreciated, Thanks.