My youngest son and I went out on our umpteenth phô lunch today, and as always, I wondered about established protocol. I’d like to follow the cultural norms, but there’s nothing worse than a food snob. I took to the internet to collect some of the wisdom about how to eat phô.

Sauces

There’s often sriracha, plum sauce, fish sauce, and red chili sauce. I dosed my first few bowls of phô with red chili sauce just because I like spicy food. According to Matt Rodbard, however, you should try the broth first:

As mentioned, when the broth is good, it’s something to be savored. So to blast it with these sweet and spicy flavors, before giving it a chance, is sort of criminal. My condiment policy with phô is similar to my condiment policy with hamburgers. The best don’t need it.

Loving Phô, dedicated to all things phô, agrees:

Phô lovers judge the bowl of phô served to them in a restaurant by sipping the broth first without putting in any seasoning or garnishing.

I see many people (mostly non-Viet and younger Viet generation) dumping in sriracha and/or hoisin sauce into their phô as the bowls arrive at the table. My question is, don’t they wonder how the broth tastes? Is it good or is it not good phô broth? If it’s not good phô broth then maybe they should try a better place.

Tri Vo, however, thinks the sauces might be a welcome addition for those who are expecting a more robust flavor from their phô; like the Guinness in the US, it’s not the same:

But if you live in the United States, it’s unlikely you’re going to get anything remotely close to perfection, even from a Vietnamese-owned business. Not to mention, ethnic food in the United States has the tendency to be a little blander, so it can adapt to a variety of palettes and tastes. Adding Sriracha and hoisin sauce can make the already bland soup feel more like home, more like what it should be.

And one vlogger’s attempt at Columbusing phô led to a raft of comments that suggest the sauce issue isn’t settled even in the motherland.

This video shows my favorite technique: a little sauce in a condiment bowl, and you can drag meat or noodles inside.

The Mechanics

At the table, there is a spoon, as well as chopsticks. My question was, do I use the spoon to drink the broth and the chopsticks to pick out the noodles and meat? Or is the spoon for Americans who don’t chopstick?

Happily, it’s just fine to hoist the bowl up to your face after you eat the noodles and drink it. The spoon is there to help agitate and incorporate the ingredients, as well as to let you enjoy enjoy some broth before you’ve eaten the other stuff. First We Feast shows how you can use the spoon in concert with your chopsticks to get a nice bite of many ingredients at once. Thrillist, however, notes that you should move the noodles to your spoon using the chopsticks, and eat from the spoon.

In the end, though, perhaps Scott Berkun’s advice is the best of all:

It’s no surprise all the experts have their laws, rules and traditions to which i say hooey. Traditions are great to try at least once, but you should always remember every tradition we have was invented by someone who tried something different than what had been done before: