![]() Nguyen missed the flavors of his home country, the way local ingredients tasted together. “It wasn’t good,” he says, shaking his head. His relatives took him out to a local restaurant for a taste of home: pho. In 2011, when he was eighteen years old, Nguyen emigrated to the United States, staying with family in Kansas City while he pursued a career in dance (Nguyen teaches hip-hop dance and does choreography). (You can still find a few elderly women who sell pho this way in Saigon, Nguyen says.) Traditionally, street vendors would balance clay pots on each end of a long shoulder pole, catering to laborers who needed a nourishing start to their day. As enterprising shop owners have noted the popularity of pho among the younger generation, plenty open back up for lunch or dinner.Ī good bowl of pho bo-bone broth, thin-sliced ribeye, rice noodles and a pile of cilantro, basil and bean sprouts-is soul-affirming. These days, a bowl of pho in Vietnam’s bustling former capital city will set you back about two dollars. But that was almost two decades ago, Nguyen says. Most shops would open at dawn and sell out by mid-morning. ![]() He would walk to one of the food stalls in his neighborhood and pay the equivalent of twenty-five cents for a hot bowl of pho. ![]() When he was growing up in Saigon, Zen Nguyen’s typical breakfast was pho. ![]()
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