Pho Hanoi: Vietnamese restaurant close to home

-
There's this restaurant in Calamba that I've been wanting to try out for a long time. It's called Pho Hanoi and it's located in Bucal, near the Total Gas Station. A few months after its opening, I was able to drop by for dinner and see if the pho was comparable to what I've tried out in Hanoi and Redwood City.

From outside, the restaurant looks welcoming and clean. Wooden tables are covered with red tablecloths and the lighting appeared inviting; not at all intimidating for a sole diner stopping by for a late dinner. Take note, I arrived there about 8:30 p.m., I think. It certainly helped that the waiting staff and the owners gave a very warm welcome to me as I entered the restaurant.

As in the previous Vietnamese restaurants I've tried, I wanted to order pho ga. However, I was surprised that this chicken soup was not available. Instead, Pho Hanoi is offering it's signature soup, pho Hanoi, and three other selections. Naturally, I had to try the pho Hanoi. 

HUGE. That was my first reaction when the bowl arrived. This soup definitely is good for more than one person... except if that individual was famished. In my case, I was able to polish off such a large serving because my last meal before this one was lunch. That's eight hours prior to dinner!

pho Hanoi

One thing I noticed as I slurped on the soup was that it tended to be sweeter than what I've tried in Hanoi but was similar to what I've tasted in Redwood City. An adaptation towards international taste, perhaps? I attributed the hint of sweetness to the onions I kept seeing in my bowl of soup. 

Unlike the other restaurants where I've eaten pho before, including ones in Manila, Pho Hanoi gave only a few pieces of basil leaves, bean sprouts, and a slice of calamansi. Normally, I'd be given a plateful of basil leaves, several lemon wedges, and lots of bean sprouts. Because of the lack of herbs to enhance or mask the pho's flavors, I was able to take in the real taste of the soup. I just missed that freshness that comes with the basil and the sharpness that's from the lemon.

As I dug deeper into the bowl, I realized that the spring onions were cut up into finer pieces than in the hole-in-the-wall I wandered into in Hoan Kiem; the vegetables in the soup were much sparser than what I got in Saba Cafe. However, I have to emphasize that in those previous forays into Vietnamese cuisine, I always got the pho ga, which has chicken. Pho Hanoi had beef in it; thus, the garnish proportions for it might be slightly different.

Then there were the spring rolls. The last time I've eaten one of these was when Tran Anh Nguyet was still a scholar in the GQNC Lab. Of course the spring rolls in Pho Hanoi tasted differently from what I used to eat; I used to eat build-your-own-rolls, in which I added all the basil leaves I could fit in the rice paper.

fresh spring rolls

The spring rolls in Pho Hanoi normally have shrimp but since I'm allergic to it, I requested to have something else in there... they gave me chicken! Instead of lots of basil leaves, the spring rolls balanced the flavors with the crunch of lettuce and the softness of rice noodles. These rolls could be dipped either in vinegar or in the brown peanut sauce. Personally, I preferred the vinegar dip, but that's just because I like the sharp flavor of it.

My dinner at Pho Hanoi was a good first try that I've decided to drop by again soon. Next time, I'll try other dishes and not just the pho. Nothing beats eating Vietnamese food in Vietnam but Pho Hanoi is the closest Vietnamese restaurant to home. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for dropping by!

Before moving on, please share your thoughts or comments about the post. :)

Thanks again!

Popular posts from this blog

Skyflakes

-
One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe...
Read more

10 things I learned while driving on Marcos Highway to Baguio City

-
I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove  going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three.  As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in...
Read more

Surat Mangyan

-
Image
In high school, part of the Filipino curriculum was learning about one of the country's ancient native scripts called Baybayin . I learned back then that this script was eventually abandoned because the Spanish, and eventually the Americans, encouraged the use of the Latin script for written communications. But that's in the lowlands; the rules were different up in the mountains. In the lush mountains of Mindoro, groups of indigenous people called Mangyans  live largely in isolation away from the Christianised Filipinos. This isolation has led to the continuous development of the Mangyans' old script, Surat Mangyan . As I walked inside the Ayala Museum , I saw this bamboo tube (I'm not sure if it's an instrument) with Mangyan script written all over it. I suppose that this was equivalent to a book or a song. But I haven't figured out what's written yet, despite the translation guide provided. What I can do, however, is write my name in Ma...
Read more