All right, enough already, I’m sorry for being a lazy pho-ker but I promise that the Pho Sho: Top 10 Pho Worldwide will be completed by the end of time. For the angry readers, don’t act like I didn’t leave you without some entertainment e.g., True Detective: The Case of the Stolen iPhone. For the newcomers, spend this time catching up on posts of pho past.
Today, we aren’t moving ahead with the list because it is too painful to look at great pics of pho while I waste my life away in the epicenter of pho failure, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Previously, I went to a Vietnamese restaurant that doubled as a Korean restaurant pho a disappointing, disgusting bowl. I searched high and wide for another restaurant and managed to find one. After wandering for hours in the Arctic cold of UB, I was more than ready to defrost from what I hope would at least be an edible bowl.
I walked in and much to my delight there was the Huy Fong Foods sisters of chili and amber ready to take a dip.
Then I looked to the menu. What’s this I see? Spring rolls? Of the shrimp variety? And Pho Tai?
Two orders of spring rolls and an extra large bowl please.
Moments later, the waitress returns to inform me that there are no shrimp spring rolls.
“How about vegetable?” I inquire.
Sure, she says.
Moments later, the waitress returns to inform me that there are no vegetable spring rolls.
“Chicken?” I say uneasily.
Moments later, the waitress returns with my bowl of pho and with the bad news that there are no chicken spring rolls. (A lucky break I guess, what are chicken spring rolls?)
Over the spring roll subject, I am excited by the look of the bowl.
I tasted the broth as is customary before adding in the sexy sisters. Something was off. Instinctively, I reached for the fraternal twins and didn’t hold back.
The moment of truth came and went and nothing good happened. At this point I would’ve been content if the soup had no flavor. Instead, it just tasted awful.
Dejected and depressed, I called over to the waitress to bring the check. As I waited for her to return, I couldn’t help but wish that along with the spring rolls the Pho House would’ve been out of Pho Tai that day.
At least then I could still have something to hope phor.
