Soup · Morning Ritual

Phở

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Before fixed street stalls existed, early-1900s Hanoi vendors sold pho by carrying broth pots on bamboo shoulder poles (gánh phở), wandering neighborhoods and calling out to customers door to door.

Flat rice noodles are ladled into a clear beef or chicken bone broth simmered for hours with charred ginger, onion, star anise, and cinnamon, then topped with thin-sliced meat, scallion, and fresh herbs. Vendors serve it to order from steaming pots at street stalls, often eaten standing or perched on tiny plastic stools first thing in the morning.

Why it's made this way: Pho grew into a national dish partly through mobile hawkers who wandered Hanoi's streets with broth pots slung on shoulder poles before the trade settled into fixed stalls in the early 20th century.