Hunter gatherer

Broth, noodles, chillis, coriander, lime… it’s hard to beat a pho in Vietnam – unless you are in London

I remember a friend ticking me off once, scoffing at my ignorance, looking at me as if I needed medical assistance. It was just before lunch and I was heading to a Vietnamese restaurant near Oxford Street. “I love pho,” I said, pronouncing it foe. “What did you just say?” she asked. “Pho,” I replied. “I love it.”

She paused, breathed in deeply and said. “It’s fuh.”

“Fuh?” I said. “I can’t go round saying I’m off for some fuh!”

“Coming from you,” she replied, “a man who has convulsions if someone pronounces the ‘d’ in Tussauds, that is rich.”

My pal had herself just returned from Vietnam, home of “fuh”. She had travelled across the country slurping the stuff. She knew what she was talking about.

At lunch, with my soon-to-be-wife Emily, at the chain called Fuh, we had large bowls of fuh.

“This pho is so good,” she said. “It’s fuh,” I insisted. “Don’t patronise me,” she replied.

“Whatever,” I said, and we both looked down at our steaming bowls of rice noodle soup. Mine had chicken in it, hers prawns. We had both added piles of fresh green herbs and spoonfuls of chilli sauce on top. Pho is one of those miraculous dishes that works as well in winter as in summer. In winter it warms. In summer, while it may still be spicy, it refreshes.

A few months later, we were in Vietnam ourselves, on honeymoon, looking for pho. On a tour of Ho Chi Minh City, the group was pausing down a little side street for a bowl. We needed a rest after the trauma of crossing a busy road.

We had reached what seemed to be a major artery of the city. There were cars, but far more mopeds and motorbikes – hundreds, if not thousands, of them.

“We’ll cross here,” said the guide, indicating a spot in the road with no crossing or traffic lights, merely the awkward possibility of death.

I looked at her puzzled and she set off. Miraculously, she managed to walk across the first two lanes, to the middle of the road, then across the next two lanes. She stopped, and shouted: “Just walk across! You’ll be fine.”

Before my wife could protest, I took her hand, and what I now know was a strange daily miracle occurred. As we walked, the traffic seemed to wilt and weave around us. There would have been less wonder at Moses as he led the Israelites across the Yam Suph.

We took our seats at a little café renowned for its pho, although my understanding is that practically every corner café has a pho just as good. Out came the bowls of broth, the piles of green leaves and veg, red chillies and a wedge of lime.

We stuffed them into the steaming bowl; a broth of stock, onions, star anise, cloves, cardamom, coriander seeds and who knows what else.

We sipped and agreed with our guide that it was lovely, fresh and comforting. But we were also embarrassed. And lying. It was good, but a little bland.

Over the course of the next week, we sipped more phos as we travelled across the country. But none seemed as good as the ones at Pho on Great Titchfield Street, back in London.

And how dreadful it is, how shocking, when a bastardised version of a dish gets more favour than its original. It’s a classic tale, a wrestle between immigrants, available ingredients and the palates of the host nation.

I still feel guilty that I prefer the pho at Pho. But I’m just an ignorant cultural appropriator. And that makes it easier reverting to the incorrect pronunciation – although I still hold that you do not pronounce the “d” in Tussauds.

How dreadful it is, how shocking, when a bastardised version of a dish gets more favour than its original