Saturday, June 01, 2013

Pho Binh by Night in Houston, Texas

Small number seven with bone marrow

When I passed by here earlier this afternoon, I noticed this place, but really just because of the tacky-sounding name. It was only when I got back to the hotel in the evening did I read about these guys in passing, realizing that Pho Binh is one of the better phở shops around town, and this was their late-night outlet (12148 Bellaire Blvd #101, 832-351-2464).

Still, that alone was not the thing that brought me back here. What brought me here was a news story that said that these guys had bone marrow phở. Huh? What the heck was bone marrow phở?? See that little bowl on the left with those globules floating on top? That's the bone marrow, which, upon scooping into the main bowl, completely transformed the anise-heavy broth into one with a rich and fatty taste. It was almost like someone dumped butter or lard into it!

That was definitely one of the more unique bowls that I've had (it's like St. John meets Pho Hoa!). And the cool thing about this shop is the quality of the ingredients that they used too, including extremely big and green leaves of basil as well as crisp and clean bean sprouts. Even if it weren't for the marrow option (which as far as I could tell was an off-the-menu item, BTW), this would probably be worth coming to for the normal bowl alone.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

hello hello! Just passing by and followed through from your post of the Capital Flea Market in San Jose. Saw that you're/were in Singapore and we were recently there so I looked up your recent posts. Just I'm not sure what your ethnicity but you can go to any Pho restaurant and ask for the bone marrow bowl that usually comes with the whites of the green onion. Sometimes you'll get the chunks of the marrow in it, but often times it's alreay melted into the broth so you can spoon it into your main pho bowl to make it even more unctuous (mmm!MM!). Also you can ask for a bowl of pickled onions on the side. Ask for Nuoc Beo, and hanh dam(pronounced sort of like yam)