Pho Ben: Fabulous Pho and Casual Chinese Fare
The best pho suburbs are in Sydney’s west, including Parramatta where you can find Pho Ben. Parramatta's Pho Ben serves one of the best bowls of pho in Sydney.
Sydney loves pho. The city’s foodies are prone to obsessions, and the pho craze is one that shows no signs of ever abating. For the uninitiated, pho (pronounced something like ‘fir’) is the humblest of Vietnamese street foods, a thin soup, typically made of beef stock and flavoured with fragrant spices (ginger, cardamom, star anise and cinnamon are among the essentials) that give it an extraordinary complexity and depth of flavour. Every bowl of pho comes laden with fresh rice noodles and a side serving of bean sprouts, chillies and Vietnamese mint.
Pho Ben recently moved from its old digs at the Chinatown end of Church Street to a slightly larger space near the Roxy Hotel on George Street. It’s still a very simple affair, but then, pho isn’t a meal you linger over. It’s wholesome, revitalising, delicious and quick – the ultimate fast food.
Most patrons don't even bother consulting the menu and go straight for the pho. The soup comes out in a few minutes after it’s been topped with lean, thin and tasty strips of raw beef that cook on contact with the hot broth. The pho here is well-balanced with a strong, nourishing beef flavour and just the right amount of sweetness. If there are any complaints it’s that some of the subtler spice flavours are just a little too buried.
The rest of the menu (apart from showcasing a range of other delicious noodle soups) has strong Chinese leanings, with Vietnamese fish cakes, rice paper rolls, char-grilled pork sticks and beef vermicelli sharing space with crispy chicken and tomato rice and salt and pepper pork spare ribs.
They also do a decent laksa (although you can find better in Parramatta) and a traditional Vietnamese iced coffee straight from the streets of Saigon.
Posted by Fiona Davies
