There is a saying that "you can't say you've been to Vietnam without having eaten Kam Lai's Beef Vermicelli". With a history of almost 50 years, Kam Lai was once rated by the Wall Street Journal as the best beef noodle dish in Ho Chi Minh City. Although it has opened a branch in Hong Kong in recent years, it is of course necessary to make a pilgrimage to the main shop for a bowl of original Pho (Vietnamese beef noodle) when visiting the city.
Ordered a bowl of the signature "Shijin Lifetime Cooked Brisket Balls Beef Vermicelli" that allows you to eat different parts of the beef, with a rich mix of thinly sliced raw beef, cooked brisket, beef tendons and beef balls.
The soup base is the soul of a bowl of Pho, so the first thing you should do is to have a sip. "The broth is made from beef brisket, beef bones, cinnamon, allspice and grass fruits, and is simmered for six hours, with a secret "beef stock oil" added to give it a brown colour that is sweet and rich, with an added aroma of beef fat, while the river noodle is soft and still tender.
The large grain of beef meatballs is very elastic, full of gelatinous beef tendons, beef flavour is strong, soft and tasty, but the raw and cooked beef is a bit inferior, the meat is lighter than the fine pieces, the texture is not too firewood, but it is not as tender as in Hong Kong, I believe that it is because the Vietnamese people are not as demanding and persistent as the Hong Kong people in their beef requirements, right? But in fact, a bowl of rice noodle with so many ingredients here is only about HK$20, which is three or four times the price of Hong Kong!
What's more, for me, a bowl of delicious, authentic Pho needs to be topped up with sprouts, kohlrabi, chilli and coriander, with a few drops of lime juice sprinkled on the bottom of the soup to make it perfect, and what makes eating Pho in Vietnam even better than in Hong Kong is that the shops are never stingy, and always include a full list of toppings that customers can add to their dishes!
There are two sauces on the table, black sweet noodle sauce and red chilli sauce which is not too spicy. Apart from dipping the meat into the sauce, adding it to the river noodles is a different flavour.
I emptied the whole bowl of Pho in no time, not a single drop of soup left! It was a hot day in Vietnam and I was sweating all over the place, so a cup of Vietnamese Iced Coffee, which was full of flavour and cold and thirst quenching, was a great help, so I was able to move on to the next attraction!
A shop:
Address: 413-415 Nguyễn Trãi, Phường 7, Quận 5, Hồ Chí Minh
Tel: +84 28 39234008Second shop:
Address: 303-305 Võ Văn Tần, Phường 5, Quận 3, Hồ Chí Minh,
Tel: +84 39234008
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