Leilani’s Gỏi Cuốn|Vietnamese Spring Rolls recipe

This is the third of four recipes that feature my favorite fish sauce Red Boat.

Leilani’s Gỏi Cuốn|Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Makes 16-18 rolls.

Chicken spring rolls with Rustic Almond Sauce

Poached shrimp and pork are the traditional proteins used in goi cuon, but can be substituted with grilled meats or tofu. Different herbs can be added, such as basil and Vietnamese coriander (rau ram), choose your favorite ones. The rolls are best when served immediately after rolling. Traditionally the ingredients are served family style onto the table and everyone assembles their own according to their preference.  In our family, we like to eat Gỏi Cuốn with whatever meat is handy including bulgogi, kalbi, grilled fish, rotisserie chicken, sai ooa|Laotian sausages, etc--which makes this a nice leftovers meal.  I have found brown rice vermicelli at a local Asian market, but I can't remember which one!

When I'm in a hurry to make a meal in under 30 minutes, I like to use Bánh Hỏi Tươi | Rice vermicelli which only needs to be soaked in hot water for a few minutes in a bowl, is conveniently portioned, and there is no pot to wash afterwards!  I also prefer the lighter noodle texture on the palate.

Ingredients:

• grilled protein (tofu, fish, seafood, chicken, beef) marinaded with lemongrass, garlic, palm or coconut palm sugar and fish sauce (can be prepared in advance)

• 8 ounces thin rice vermicelli noodles (bún or Bánh Hỏi Tươi)

• 1 head butter or red lettuce, washed and ribs removed or a box of organic spring salad mix

• 1 bunch fresh mint leaves

• 1 bunch fresh cilantro leaves

• 1 English cucumber, persian/armenian or pickle cucumber, julienned into 3-4 inch sticks

• 16-20 garlic chives or Chinese chives

• optional sauteed kale (power greens amped)

• optional pickled leeks or pickled garlic sliced thinly or kimchi/sauerkraut (get salt fermented for a tangy probiotic boost!)

• optional green mango, starfruit, or other sour fruit julienned (not recommended if you are using sauerkraut/kimchi)

• 1 package rice paper (bánh tráng)

• Nước Mấm Pha|Dipping sauce, Original almond sauce or my new Rustic Almond Sauce

Directions:

Marinade meat with minced lemongrass, garlic, sugar and fish sauce. Grill/roast/etc. Once it is cooked, allow to cool then shred into bite size pieces and arrange onto a platter.

ASSEMBLE INGREDIENTS 
Thoroughly wash herbs in a basin of water until the dirt settles on the bottom. Remove the stems and arrange onto a platter.

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Using your hands separate rice vermicelli noodles as you drop them in. Boil for 2-3 minutes until tender using chopsticks to separate the noodles. Drain out the water in a colander and rinse the vermicelli in cold water until cool. Arrange in a serving bowl.

Arrange all the ingredients at each end of the table. Everyone should have a plate for the rice paper and a dipping bowl for the Nước Mấm Pha|fish sauce dip or the almond sauce.  

ROLL YOUR OWN

Fill a medium bowl with cold or room temperature water and quickly dip a piece of rice paper into water; make sure to wet the entire piece. Do not soak it! Hot water will soften it quickly, but you may have tearing.  Cold water takes longer to reconstitute the rice paper, but will tear less.

Place on a plate and allow to soften. Place a lettuce leaf at the lower end of the rice paper. Add rice noodles, protein, mint, cucumber, cilantro and chive evenly across the rice paper. You can add any of the sour pickled options as well. Roll the rice paper over the filling and tuck it underneath. Continue rolling while keeping tension on the rice paper for a tight roll. The roll will seal itself.  I personally like the burrito method of folding in the ends which keeps the ingredients inside the roll.

Serve with Nước Mấm Pha or almond dipping sauce.  If we are eating to go, I add the sauce in the roll as I make it and eliminate an extra thing to tote.

Bonus Variation: Bún|Noodle Salad

Bún is the deconstructed version of Gỏi Cuốn.  The noodles are served warm in bowls, heaped with shredded lettuce, herbs, julienned cucumbers, bean sprouts, and topped with warm protein.  The dressing is Nước Mấm Pha with a generous heaping of finely shredded carrots.  We've also used my almond sauce with bún for my daughter.

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

Nước Mấm Pha|Fish sauce dip recipe

This is the fourth of four recipes that feature my favorite fish sauce Red Boat.

Nước Mấm Pha|Fish sauce dip

In the Viet restaurants, they shortcut Nước Mấm Pha by using CoCo Rico (a Riqueño coconut soda) if you are lucky and 7-Up/generic equivalent if you are not.  Yeah.  I go very old-school, pre-colonial on this and use coconut palm sugar & fresh young coconut juice instead of water.  Fresh young coconuts can be obtained at most Asian markets.

(Note: unrefined sugars like coconut palm sugar or raw honey will darken dishes unlike the whitewashed dishes we are used to.  Use your tastebuds, not your eyes to determine quality/flavor.)

• 1/2 cup fish sauce
• 2-4 tbs đường thốt nốt | palm sugar or coconut palm sugar (or dried fruit syrup)*
• 1-2 fresh thai bird chiles or homemade garlic chile paste
• 1 lime
• 1-2 minced garlic
• unsweetened juice from a young coconut (Vita Coco is a decent substitute, also water)

Mix together the ingredients to taste. Let sit for 10 minutes for flavors to blend.  Optional to discard the garlic at this point.  Add coconut juice to dilute to desired taste & consistency.

*I've recently watched Dr. Robert Lustig's TED talk where he lists the 56 names of sugar.  While coconut palm sugar was not one of the named and has a lower glycemic index, it still is a refined sugar.

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

Gỏi xoài/đu đủ/bấp cải|Vietnamese Slaw recipe

This is the second of four recipes that feature my favorite fish sauce Red Boat.

Gỏi xoài/đu đủ/bấp cải|Vietnamese Slaw

Below I have a green mango slaw recipe, but another traditional (and my personal favorite) way to eat green mangoes is to dip it in fish sauce mixed with đường thốt nhốt|palm sugar (optional fresh chiles).  When me and siblings were kids, we'd steal all the green mangoes off the tree in our front yard in Makiki District of Honolulu and eat them this way (albeit with white sugar) which exasperated our parents who wanted the mangoes to ripen.  Random trivia: I love my siblings, green mangoes and nước mấm so much I included this as a major motif in the screenplay for the experimental feature film KIỀU.

• 2 firm unripe large mangoes (Kent is a good variety) or 1 unripe papaya (can be found in Asian or Mexican stores) or 1/2 head of cabbage, shredded
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh coriander
• sliced onions or shallots (optional)
• raw apple cider vinegar
• 1/3 cup fresh mint
• 1/3 cup of thai basil and/or rau ram|Vietnamese coriander (optional)
• Chopped nuts to garnish (almonds, macadamia, walnuts, etc)
• Optional protein: grilled/fried tofu cut into strips, blanched shrimp, shredded chicken or pork (plainly cooked) or Viet beef jerky (traditionally eaten with gỏi đu đủ|green papaya salad)

Dressing

• 3 tbs Red Boat fish sauce
• 2 tbs đường thốt nốt| palm sugar or coconut palm sugar (or raw honey)* or fruit syrup
• 1-2 fresh thai bird chiles
• 1 tbs oil
• 1/2 lime
• 1 minced garlic
• Handful of cashews, macadamias, or almonds roughly chopped or sliced (optional use raw or sprouted nuts)

In a separate bowl, mix together the dressing ingredients incl garlic and set aside. Slice onion or shallots very thinly and soak in raw apple cider vinegar. Julienne or shred unripe mangoes, green papaya or cabbage. (If you want a less watery slaw, salt the cabbage or papaya and let sit for 30 to 60 min. Discard the water.)  Toss together with herbs and drained onions/shallots. Add protein. Pour the dressing on the slaw and toss. Let sit for 20 mins for flavors to absorb. Garnish with sprigs of cilantro and chopped nuts before serving

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

*3/1/2014 I've recently watched Dr. Robert Lustig's TED talk where he lists the 56 names of sugar.  While coconut palm sugar was not one of the named, it still is a refined sugar.  

Anchovy Salad Dressing

This is one of four recipes that feature my favorite fish sauce Red Boat.

Anchovy Salad Dressing

While this goes well with a classic Caesar dressing, my foodie brother taught me a nice salad dressing which I've tweaked a wee.  It's a light salad Asian dressing that pairs well with watercress or other assertive greens (fennel, endives or baby kale, chard & spinach for examples), avocados, and chicken salads. 

• nước mấm 
• lime juice
• sesame oil
• split garlic rubbed on the serving bowl or minced and soaked in the sauce & discarded before serving (more refined that way, meaning less gas)
• optional organic đường thốt nốt | sago palm sugar or coconut palm sugar or raw honey. 

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

Red Boat Nước Mấm Rocks!

Being Việt , I don't have a fear of fish sauce.  I use nước mấm with a lot of things besides Vietnamese food--eggs, bone broth, any soup or stew, salad dressing, meat marinade, quinoa, thai food, cambodian food, laotian food, adobo chicken/pork, pasta puttanesca or pasta sauce, kimchi, kimchi jigae, miyuk gook, and an experimental dessert (in progress)--typically in place of or to enhance sea salt.  Because fish sauce is fermented and nutritionally dense, I add it at the end of cooking after the stove is turned off when possible.  No sense in cooking off those nutrients, amino acids, vitamins, etc.

I only use locally-headquartered Red Boat Fish Sauce (Milpitas, CA).  Red Boat is a nutritionally dense, fermented sacred food meaning it is a nutrient-dense food vital to a cultural foodway prepared according to a centuries if not millenia-old method with whole ingredients.

I don't know about "The Best in The World" business, I mean in Việt Nam most families worth their salt make their own nước mấm.  And every family knows their homemade nước mấm is The Best.  For those who've relocated to urban areas and no longer make their own, they will go to great lengths to return to the mother's family home and bring home batches and batches of nước mấm.  (Aside: I actually have a funny somewhat related anecdote about flying in-country with mấm and mít|jackfruit when my husband, siblings and I went to VN together in 2007, but I'll save that for another post/blog or in person recounting.  You kinda have to know what mấm and mít are and be familiar with Công Sản officiousness to get the humor in it.  Like many anecdotes it's the telling of it that is so hilarious.)  Weo, I guess "Best Commercially Produced Fish Sauce Export in the World" didn't really have that je ne sai quoi ring to it.  I would be remiss not to mention that Red Boat is winning the approval of all sorts of celebrity chefs and foodies all over the US.  I won't name drop, because I am bad with names and what is with the cult of personality anyways.  Just google it.

Nước mấm taste test --Don't try this at home, kids!

After doing a nước mấm taste test on a "hot date night" (which was exactly what you think a fish sauce taste test would be like on a date night for a domesticated couple), I will credit it with "Best Fish Sauce in the Western Hemisphere" for sure.  I expect there to be a vast quantity of inferior bootleg versions of this in the next year--Gold Boat, Red Yacht, 2 Red Boats, 3 Red Boats, 2 Red Boats and a Dinghy.  I hope Red Boat has a good trademark lawyer...

Anyheo, I am currently was organizing a wholesale coop for Red Boat for Holistic Moms Network Tri-City & San Jose chapters and my phamily & homies in the Bay and SoCal with the approval of the gracious owner Cường Phạm (no relation, that I know of.  I mean, one never knows.  Obama and every US President but one is related to King John of England for pete's sake.  Yeah, King John of Robin Hood notoriety.  Deep innit?).  I can be a little ... enthusiastic about things I like (see pimping pork for example).  I seriously was on the verge of fermenting my own fish sauce when hallelujah, I found Red Boat--saving me the hassle of sweet-talking the husband, finding a spigot crock, sourcing sustainable, wild caught anchovies, fermenting dead fish, fobbing off angry neighbors and intrepid/gangsta racoons (if you don't know about the gangsta racoons of Alameda County, weo count yourself lucky).  My husband is relieved and instead my phamily, friends, acquaintances, strangers, Sunset magazine, the universe has to put up with me singing the praises of Red Boat and hella dissing whatever piss-swill fish sauce they use (it's endearing in context, really).  FYI I will seriously throw-down epidemiology with any MD who spuriously claims that fish sauce causes strokes.  Let's see the correlating research on say, the entire subcontinent of Southeast Asia, controlled studies, or did med school not teach them evidence-based medicine?  I was not a research analyst for almost a decade without knowing a thing or two about substantive proof.  Fear of salt is yet another American cultural myth while fear of the lack of salt is a colonized people's legacy.

The order ended up being 9 cases which totally exceed my expectation for 3 cases.  I should have just gotten 10 cases because there were a lot of latecomers who wanted in and I am not willing to break into my personal reserves and it also makes a great gift.  My aunty Len, the Phamily matriarch, says the company should give me free fish sauce for being a one-woman promotional dervish.  Never mind the fish sauce, I want stock options!  (Actually, anh Cường, I'd be happy with free nước mấm or like y'know, a bad-ass Red Boat t-shirt/swag. Just sayin'.)

I am usually too busy cooking or eating or doing stuff to make food porn.  I do have a few relevant photos scattered over various social media sites so I'll dig them up eventually and add them to this particular post here.  I'm a busy work-at-home mom starting up a new birth support worker business, freelance writing, making art, following my bliss, living and loving, on top of the blogging.  Hence the sporadic nature of my posts.  (FYI there's several drafts in the queue--local organic meat sources, nước cốt dừa|coconut milk, Brown Rice Bánh Xèo|Savory Crepes, Bún Măng Vịt|Duck & bamboo soup, Bánh Da Lợn|Pandan Mung bean cake-ish whence we get into the origins of the name, and Râu Câu|Seaweed jelly birthday cake using homemade fruit food coloring--so subscribe to my blog for updates on the food front.)

As with all my recipes, I try to use organic or sustainably produced ingredients where possible.  It just tastes better.  Also, I eliminate wheat, dairy, soy (when possible), chemical additives, and refined sugars.

Recipes below:

1. Anchovy Salad Dressing
2. Gỏi|Slaw
3. Gỏi Cuốn|Spring rolls
4. Nước Mấm Pha|Dipping sauce

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

Gỏi Cá Tái | Ceviche Recipe

Gỏi Cá Tái | Ceviche

Me and my homegirl Tuyền have been bouncing recipes off each other after trying something similar at O3 lounge in SF when we were celebrating Q2's wedding.  This is inspired by love and life.  It is not strictly Vietnamese.

• Any raw seafood (halibut, cod, scallops, langostino, etc.) chopped into small pieces
• Lightly blanched shrimp (or raw) chopped into small pieces
• garlic and/or shallots
• Chopped cilantro leaves
• Keffir lime leaves
• Lemon or lime juice
• (Optional) Fresh coconut water
• Sea salt
• Dash of Red Boat Nước Mấm
• Chopped tomatoes
• Chopped avocados
• Pomelo or grapefruit sectioned without the skin
• Chipotle habanero sauce (I get this from Azure Standard)
• Bánh Tráng Nướng|Roasted Rice Paper, Bánh Phồng Tôm|Shrimp chips, Tortilla chips or over shredded cabbage.

Blend a little coconut water with garlic, shallots, keffir lime leaves, cilantro, lemon juice, nước mấm, and seasalt.  Pour over raw seafood.  Add tomatoes, avocados, pomelo, and several dashes of chipotle habanero.  Lightly toss and salt to taste.  Garnish with a few whole cilantro leaves.  Let it soak for 30 min.

Eat with Bánh Tráng Nướng--this is a specialty of Central VN which is my dad's quê hương|natal province, shrimp chips, tortilla chips, or over cabbage slaw.

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

Confessions of a Phở-natic

Blasted blogger somehow overwrote my newer version with a draft so now I have to reconstruct.  Other recent blogs on the topic of Phở
Genealogy of Phở
Real Phở Bo Recipe

Real Phở Ga Recipe

So my foodie friend over at Streatery called my out on my claim to be "not zealous" and the lengths I am willing to go to acquire quality meat--organic, pasture-raised if possible, humanely butchered.

Yes, I have sourced sustainably-raised Sonoma Liberty duck legs to make bún măng vịt|duck bamboo soup (post forthcoming) after 3 months/attempts (and I'm not too proud to say I did it through a raw pet feed coop;  I've volunteer schlepped thousands of pounds of raw meat for two months to make good on this).

Yes, I have been an itinerant meat dealer slinging cryovac'ed cuts from a organic heritage hog (red wattle!), hustlin' all up in east Oakland.  Holla! (or if you're in Fruitvale ¡Hola!)

Meat Man
Head of State — MOVIECLIPS.com

Mangalista yummy!

And I have braved the mega-hipster crowd and hours long line at Pork Prom just to eat crumbs of the curly haired Hungarian Mangalitsa.

And I have divvied up 120 lbs of delicious organic hog and offal as it defrosted blood all over my floor.

But, I am not zealous.  I am enthusiastic.  I just like good food and good health at a reasonable cost.

So here are some confessions of a Phở-natic:

• My recipe is my own.  Of course I didn't invent it.  Over the years of trying to phở-ness (oh yes, I will portmanteau phở into every conceivable iteration) with advice from my mom, my oldest aunty, I cross-referred to existing recipes from cookbooks and internet for quantity because you know "add as much as you like to taste, I don't know how you like it" is not a valid measurement and rice bowls and soup spoons are not reliable measurements.  And although I did acquire a digital scale to ride this new foodie trend of weighing food, I still don't think in metric.  Sorry, American born.
• I don't eat beef.  I stopped eating it in on a regular basis in 2003 after noticing I was not digesting it very well and what's more, would develop boils after eating conventionally produced beef.  Eww! TMI I know.  I make beef phở on infrequent occasions and try to use only the highest quality beef, so boils are no longer a problem and I take enzymes to help me digest.  I make chicken phở far more frequently.  I gave up on restaurant phở last year not just because the broth was mediocre and masked by liberal use of nước mắm to cover up the lack of hours long bone extracting simmering, but also because the excessive amounts of MSG gave me severe intestinal cramps and prompted a bad metabolic crash.  And that's without slurping the broth.  I may make exceptions for Turtle Tower (SF) and Pho Nguyen Hue (OC) but probably only if I am carrying my supplements that buffer me from chemicals that my body finds toxic.  Otherwise I will violate the cardinal rule of eating at a phở specialty restaurant by ordering from the non-phở menu.  Can't go wrong with a grilled meat rice plate.  Cross my fingers.  Now that we are sourcing grass-fed/-finished, pasture-raised, sustainable beef, I've increased my beef intake with minimal repurcussions.  I like tripe in my phở but I've yet to source organic, non-chemically processed tripe and we're not ready to buy half a cow.
  
• When I am on a budget or cannot find time to source local organic, grass-fed beef or organic pasture-raised chicken--which is most of the time--I buy halal, that is, beef/chicken that is grown in accordance with spiritual strictures tastes better than meat grown for greed & environmental destruction.  And that is not just the Bay Area smug talking.  I'll post again about my local meat sources, but currently, I go to Indian Market and get their organic, halal Petaluma Poultry chicken for $2.29/lb.  It's really a marked taste improvement over supermarket chicken.  I had pasture raised chicken for the first time a few months ago and was really astounded by the flavor which blew my now-ordinary seeming organic halal chicken out of the farmyard.
• I put leafy greens in my phở.  No, I'm not talking about ngò gai, basil, and cilantro.  I'm talking raw baby power greens--chard, baby kale and baby spinach are my current faves.  What da phở?  Weo, I never claimed to be a purist about phở (ok, maybe I did).  I love my people's food, but here in the US, it consists of too much refined whites and too much meat.  I need greens with every meal to feel nourished.  I make sure they are cooked to reduce the oxalic acid in raw greens to which I am very sensitive.
• I don't like onions.  Although I faithfully follow my grandmother's method of carmelizing a whole onion, I've been allergic to onions ever since I can remember (yes, this is a real thing.  I would get rashes and have respiratory issues.) and rarely used it in the last two decades of my cooking experience.  However, my chiropractor recently cured me of this allergy (not just for backs, yo!) and now onions are back in my pantry.  Perhaps, this is the missing ingredient to make my phở taste like my grandmother's.  And indeed, it does make a difference to the color of the broth.
• Making my own brown rice phở noodles or substituting another kind of brown rice noodle is on my list of to-do's to try to make phở even more nutritious.  I am lucky enough to have a mother-in-law who grew up in a rural hamlet in the delta making everything from scratch so I pick her brain a lot and there's also my bro and Streatery's genius.  I had an epic first attempt fail with brown rice bánh xèo (a future blog post one day) but I'm not giving up just yet.  So until I master brown rice flour, I have been known to eat phở with brown rice; that's the actual rice grains.  It's... interesting.
• On the noodle tip, I prefer even-wider-than-fettucine-XL-sized bánh phở|noodles which seems to be a northern thing.  I've only ever seen wide noodles at the northern style restaurant Turtle Tower in the Tenderloin because they make their own noodles by hand.  So this means I choose the dried, made overseas noodles over the "fresh" regional-/California-made noodles which typically comes in narrower widths.  I also choose the dried kind because they don't use wheat/gluten or preservatives unlike the fresh ones.  But if I am willing to pay the discomfort with chemical preservatives and do choose fresh, I go for the wider hủ tiếu|rice noodles.
• Besides leafy greens, I garnish my phở with basil, cilantro, ngò gai (when I have it), occasionally blanched mung bean sprouts, Red Boat nước mắm
  ắm nhi
  ắm nhi
  , and lime/lemon juice.  Other than RB which is a recent artisanal product, that's how I've eaten it since I was a child and how I came to appreciate the nuances of broth unpolluted by condiments.  I still lift my bowl to slurp the last of the broth which btw is entirely polite in Việt etiquette.
• I have been known to substitute dried Italian basil when I don't have have Thai basil on hand.  What can I say, our herb garden didn't over-winter last year and I can't get to the Asian store that often.  Our garden this year had African basil and chocolate basil, not Thai basil, so that is what went in the phở.
• As I indicated as much in my flagship blog post, I am not attached to any "real food" celebrity or branded dietary program.  I finally watched Food, Inc for the first time a few months ago.  And I've yet to finish reading The Omnivore's Dilemma.  When I volunteered to table for my HMN chapter at the Wise Traditions WAPF conference last year, I had no clue who Sally Fallon is or why our chapter leader mom was so excited she punched me when she saw her; I was there to see if I could get discounted organic stuff in the vendor section (not so much).  I've only been to one foodie convening and really it was just something to do with my bro & his girlfriend when they were in town.  So I'm not really a convert to anything, just appreciate real food.
• I cheat time--though not nutritional value--with a pressure cooker.  I have a vintage Fissler Vitavit Royal that I inherited from my grandmother before she passed.  It must be rather fancy because replacing the aged gasket & valve set me back $30.  I can only cook family sized amounts in this one because the bones take up so much volume.  The provenance of this special pressure cooker was probably my gourmand fashion designer uncle turned gourmand friar-priest uncle when he entered the monastery.  He is probably also why my grandmother who couldn't read english was also in possession of Craig Clairborne's NY Times Cookbook which I inherited as well, though I donated/recycled it last year.  (Gasp!  What can I say, America's Test Kitchen is my go-to cookbook.)  This takes me from 5 hours with my cauldron to 1-1.5 hours with my pressure cooker.  An indication for me as to the quality is if the broth is gelatinous overnight in the fridge from the rendered collagen.
• I re-use the bones and that gets me maximum nutrient extraction and value for my dollar (or use-per-eat to paraphrase my girlfriend Tuyen's theory of economic consumer rationalization).  I make batches and freeze the broth because I am too lazy to can though I admire the efficiency and smarts of making shelf-stable canned broth.  I defrost weekly or thereabouts and everyone in the family sips a cup of broth on the daily for the mineral content immune boost.  Note that bones can be made for 2-3 re-uses but after that, it diminishes in beefy flavor so you'll have to add meat cuts.  The bones can then continue to be used for bone broth/hunter's tea.
• I met a Hawai'i-kine custom surfboard maker in Santa Barbara back in January.  He told me how he's been blackballed at the local phở joint for trying to mod his phở too many times trying to make it more like the saimin he missed (itself a fusion of local ethnic groups).  Maybe 5 years ago this might have prompted an one-sided traditionalist argument on my part (though I don't know that I'd even argue, if it wasn't for people mod'ing, bánh mỳ ổ|Vietnamese sandwich may have never come into existence and the world would be a sadder place for it), but I just shrugged and told him how to make his own phở and mod it however he wanted.  Some folks add carrots or daikon to the pho to sweeten it.  Others add pork bones.  I like my phở with kale and brown rice.  Who am I to judge?

 So there you have it.  Keepin' it phở real.

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!