Making pho, Vietnam's national dish

I am a big fan of the restaurant Pho, a restaurant I first discovered when I worked for UNICEF - their Clerkenwell restaurant is just around the corner, but they have branches all over London and one in Brighton, too. My lunch takeaway of choice was always their delicious and ridiculously filling "Bun Ga Hue" - hot and spicy chicken in a rice noodle stock that you enhance yourself by adding as much sliced onion, herbs (typically mint, Thai basil, coriander), lime juice, beansprouts and chili to as you want.

But "Pho" is not just the name of a restaurant, it's actually a dish. Vietnam's national dish, some claim. Hopefully next year I will have my fill of Vietnamese food - if that's even possible - when Olly and I head there but for now we'll have to make do with Vietnamese restaurants and our own efforts.

This was our first try at making pho - we went for pork pho, recipe here - and I have to say that it was really delicious, though we couldn't add bean sprouts (we couldn't find any in the local area, can you believe!), and we didn't add any of the hoisin sauce or the Sriracha chili sauce (in the eggcups) to our bowls as it was plenty hot already! I'm looking forward to making pho again and also giving Kingsland Road in Dalston a try with its many Vietnamese restaurants.

Are you a fan of Vietnamese food? What's your favourite dish and do you have a favourite Vietnamese restaurant? x