The nice thing about having a cold in Fresno is there’s lots of pho to choose from.
Here I am, blowing my nose and buying a ton of grape juice. I have a cold. My favorite pastime when I have a cold is to try to eat as much soup as possible.
Pho Fun For Everyone
There are several soupy selections available in the FresYes area, especially in the delicious world of pho. For example, there are many ways to order pho, and several different broths. I always order Pho Ga, which is chicken broth, but many swear by Pho Bo, which is beef broth. Depending on where you go, you can select the type of noodles you get. I always get rice noodles. I love how you can customize your bowl of pho, but I never know what I’m doing so I just add it all: cilantro, Thai basil, lime, jalepeno, and bean sprouts. For me it’s important to add hoisin and sriracha sauce because I’m obsessed with sriracha. If there is sriracha ice-cream I will eat it. It’s really the ultimate comfort food (the pho, not the spicy chili sauce).
Pho can be confusing to a newbie like me, the first time I ordered I just said, “chicken” instead of “Pho Ga”. However, I know is that it is super yummy, and I always feel 100 times better after a big bowlful. My fellow FresYes columnist and soup expert Debra offered to share her pho knowledge with me. I have a lot to learn.
Debra’s Take On Pho
I totally understand the confusion in the name and you certainly aren’t alone JoAnn! I found a great article that explains all this, click here for more pho fun. But the secret in a great Pho is the broth. It’s slow cooked usually for 24 hours! It’s full of amazing fragrant aromatics and spices. A good pho broth is clear (not cloudy) and the toppings are considered the “garnish”. But like Joann, I load mine up too with all the fixin’s and light it up with a generous amount of Sriracha – YUM!
Hungry? The Pho King Challenge Awaits
Are you obsessed with pho? If you are a GIGANTIC fan of pho, check out the Hmong New Year Celebration at the Fresno Fair Grounds. LOTS of PHO.
There’s a Pho King Challenge taking place every day from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. from December 26 to January 1. For 25 dollars you can enter the challenge. All you have to do is show up at the Pig Out booth and scream very, very loudly, “I ACCEPT YOUR CHALLENGE”. Then eat THIRTY BOWLS OF PHO BO (well, 5 oz bowls, BUT STILL). If you can eat it ALL you win a T-Shirt, your food is free, and you get a gift card. If you fail, you are out 25 dollars and you may never look pho in the face again, but at least you’ll have a cool “Pho King Failure” shirt.
However, if you’re not up to eating a ton of pho at once, don’t worry! There are a LOT of pho spots in FresYes, and a LOT of opinions. For example, many people in the Clovis area swear by Pho 2006, Pho VN. Others are fans of Pho Delite, and Pho Le 777.
In Fresno, Pho 90, Pho Paradise, and Pho 75 #2 are popular recommendations. Do you have a favorite? What do you look for in a good bowl of pho?
BONUS: How do you pronounce Pho?
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I so wish we had Pho in Hailey, Idaho. The other day, I tried to make faux pho, but it was nothing like real pho so I still have a strong hankering.
Awww…You just need to take a vacation to Fresno I think 😉
San Jose is probably the home to as authentic as you can get Pho. They have a very large if not the largest Vietnamese population in CA. They have huge areas of the city dedicated to them and even named Little Saigon. I highly suggest you guys take a 2 hour drive over to San Jose and try a couple of bowls of Pho from places that have the highest amount of reviews on yelp. Here is a tip, if it isn’t somewhere close by Story Road, Tully Road, or Senter road, it probably isn’t that great. Also to note I noticed yelp in the bay area is huge. Everyone there is a food blogger and if you look at most of the reviewers they are of Asian descent, so their reviews on Pho is usually spot on because they have high standards. Then after you tried a few there try Fresno Pho places, and compare. That would be a great article. If the places in Fresno/Clovis are Hmong ran, it might not be as good as the ones in San Jose which truly are all ran by Vietnamese.