Broth the best part of this chicken soup
To slurp or not to slurp?
That is the question when faced with a bowl of Vietnamese chicken broth at Banh Cuon Pho Ga.
The Earlscourt restaurant makes a particularly delicious version studded with chicken hearts, gizzards and liver. It’s a favourite of Tyler Shedden, chef de cuisine of Café Boulud in the Four Seasons Hotel, who once recommended it to The Grid.
“It brings me back to a time my wife and I spent three months in Vietnam and would go to a pho ga spot in Hanoi that served the offal in the soup,” Shedden tells me.
The restaurant, whose name describes its two specialties (rice rolls and chicken soup), is nothing to look at; the florid orchids in the window are the only colour. But it is clean and friendly.
The soup, No. 22 ($6.50), arrives in a deep bowl garnished with sliced onions and baby cilantro. Thai basil sprigs are on the side, as is customary, along with bean sprouts and a lime wedge.
I’ve ordered a version with dark meat, hoping it will be less dry. It’s not: The cleaved thighs, boneless and sheathed in rubbery skin, have given their all to the broth. Dipping morsels into Sriracha adds needed flavour.
Bobbing alongside thin rice noodles are tiny muscular hearts and cartilaginous gizzards, a handful each.
The promised liver is missing but given everything else in the soup, I suspect the liver would be overcooked.
It’s the dark broth I can’t resist. Globules of fat dot the surface and flecks of denatured protein settle to the bottom. The flavour is intense — long cooking has some benefits — with hints of star anise, cloves and onion but light on garlic and ginger. Sometimes duck goes into the pot. (Beef broth is made separately.)
After I’ve finished with the solids, I put down my chopsticks and lift the bowl to my lips, drinking deeply and (I hope) quietly. I ask owner Hai Tran if this is acceptable in his native land.
“In Vietnam, you can slurp. To Canadians, it’s very rude but it’s a compliment to the cook,” says Tran through a translator.
Banh Cuon Pho Ga,1772 St. Clair Ave. W. (near Old Weston Rd.), 416-651-3771, banhcuonstclair.com. Open Wednesday to Monday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Tuesday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. apataki@thestar.ca, Twitter @amypataki