Recently a little pho place opened down the street from me and called itself Super Pho & Teriyaki. Anything that starts with super must be pretty cool, so I took a stroll down the road with my friend so we could get ourselves a taste. The place is pretty tiny and nondescript, but had enough tables open for us. We ordered at the counter and I decided to get their House Pho. This included meat balls, brisket, tendon and tripe. A few more organs and I would have had enough to build a whole cow from scratch in my stomach.
We took out seats to wait for our pho and then realized that under the counter, they actually had some things to throw in the pho, although most were leafy or vegetable-like so I didn’t really spend much time there. They did, however, have free hot tea, so I grabbed a cup of that. After a slightly lengthy wait, my pho was ready.
At first, I did a search for the tripe and tendons, since those were going to be the most fun to eat. I had eaten both before, but not in soup form. Struggling to find these, I ate some meatballs and brisket. The meatballs were incredibly rubbery and tough to eat, which was disappointing. The brisket was a step up in rubbery texture, but still kind of chewy. Although the brisket had decent flavor, I never thought I would look so forward to eating organs. Finally, I found myself some tripe. Tripe has an incredibly strange texture which I remembered not enjoying last time, but this time the tripe was nice and chewy, while maintaining that unique texture. It didn’t have too much flavor, but I don’t know what kind of flavor I would want from stomach.
Lastly, I found the tendon. I remembered this being kind of jelly-like, but wasn’t sure what sort of difference it would make in soup. In fact, the texture remained as I remembered it, as a sort of overly coagulated jell-o. It had also absorbed some good flavor from the soup, which was quite nice.
The rest of the soup tasted pretty ordinary, but good, especially with some chili oil added. Next time I’ll be okay avoiding the meatballs, but it was a good opportunity for me to revisit those strange meats of tripe and tendon and actually enjoy them. Now I’m just eager to find out what these will taste like at the end of a long night of drinking next door at Big Foot West.
