Pho Ga @ PhoHam
32 Hope St, Liverpool, L1 9BX
The first thing I ate in Vietnam was a bowl of Pho Ga.
We’d not long stepped off a particularly turbulent Cathay Pacific flight to Hanoi, where the tumult was so bad that they temporarily stopped the unlimited in-flight service of cup noodles, something the man sat on the row opposite was very upset about.
Tired but wide awake in the way you only feel when you’ve spent half a day chasing the earth’s orbit in a metal tube, we decided to find something for dinner or breakfast or whatever it is you call a meal you have at 3.45am.
One of the only places open near to our hotel in the Old Quarter was a small café – really a converted garage – open to the street on two sides. And all they were serving were huge bowls of steaming chicken pho, Pho Ga.
On ordering we were asked what kind of chicken we wanted, Ga Mem (soft meat, which the woman taking the money signalled by pinching the inside of her forearm) or Ga Dai (hard meat, which she indicated by pinching the skin on the back of her hand). I looked back gormlessly and was shooed away.
The bowls of flat rice noodles and broth were presented to us with a mix of chicken meat – soft white shreds and thicker caramelised chunks, chewy with collagen.
When I ordered Pho Ga at PhoHam – a new-ish Vietnamese diner opened in the basement next to Fredrick’s jazz bar on Hope Street – this was exactly what arrived at my table too.
The flavour of the broth, clean but intensely savoury with a delicate breath of aromatic ginger and charred onion, was also the same. As were the small bunches of coriander and mint leaves, the beansprouts and the wedge of sour lime served alongside it.
Even the yellow-capped bottle of “Hieu Quang Yen” brand chilli sauce poking from the utensil caddy; the same.
When we revisited the Old Quarter a few years ago we walked around for ages trying to find the amazing Pho Ga place, but couldn’t. Now I can just go to Hope Street.
They don’t serve Vietnamese beer at PhoHam though. Instead of 333 (ba ba ba) or Saigon Special, there’s Madri on draft. But it works. As they say to tourists in Hanoi; same same, but different.
