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What to Eat in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in Vietnam
You should be eating PHO for sure when you are visiting Vietnam. This post focuses on the famous pho restaurant Pho 2000, but I also wrote best pho restaurants in HCMC Vietnam here. If you are looking for restaurants that are not pho, you can check out my blog post about “top restaurants in HCMC that are not pho!“
One of the reasons we wanted to visit Vietnam was the amazing food and in particularly because of Pho. Especially after a long drinking session (which is almost everyday), your body needs a good meaty soup with amazing flavors.
Pho was one of things we wanted to try the minute we arrived in Ho Chi Min City.
What is Pho?
Pho is (pronounced fuh) is a rice noodle soup. The soup is from a pungent beef stock and some places boil for days to make the soup rich.
The noodle soup usually comes with different kinds of beef from flank, tendons, briskets, and round eye beef. You can also order with chicken. They will bring bean sprouts, basil, jalapeños and lime on the side.
It is a national dish (maybe like hamburgers and french fries in America). You will see it almost on every corner. So how do we choose the best one? Keep on reading and you will find out!
Where Should I Eat Pho in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
If you are only visiting for a short period of time, try Pho 2000. It is hygienic and tastes clean. If you are staying longer and want to try more than one, here is a list of full pho places you have to visit in Ho Chi Minh City.
It’s difficult to know which one to try as Pho is available everywhere. You will probably see pho after pho after pho in Saigon. But we decided to try Pho 2000. Pho 2000 is a chain that was made famous as Bill Clinton ate his very first pho here. Allegedly, after the first bowl he enjoyed it so much he asked for another one.
But this famous chain is not just a restaurant that got famous because of Bill Clinton. It is a family restaurant that has been going on for three generations. And generation after generation, this family restaurant has been reinventing itself.
RELATED: EVERYTHING I WISHED I HAVE KNOWN BEFORE GOING TO VIETNAM
It was that time when Pho 2000 wanted to bring the food industry to be more hygienic in Vietnam. And when Bill Clinton visited Ho Chi Minh in 2000, He wanted to try pho at a hygienic restaurant. Pho 2000 was there at the right time when Clinton team was looking for a good pho and a clean restaurant.
How Do You Eat Pho?
Pho is like the hamburger in America. You can eat it however you want it. You can put all the beansprouts in or not. You can just have beaf flanks in your soup or put everything fro meat balls to rare beef.
You can put tons of jalapeños and Siracha sauce in it or not. There was a huge outrage in America when Bon Appetite made a video with this White guy did a PSA about pho and told off for people putting Siracha sauce in the soup.
When Do You Eat Pho?
Most of Vietnamese eat it any time of the day. Be breakfast, lunch or dinner. I particularly like to eat in the morning as I believe it is a cure for my bad hangover. But you can eat it anytime of the day you want.
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