Better Late Than Never: Pho Season
By Christopher St Cavish, Mar 18th, 2010 | In Nightlife
Shanghai's pho market is saturated, soaked in weak beef broths perfumed with star anise and imminent failure. Or is it?
I never buy the argument that Shanghai's other markets are saturated and overcrowded. There is always -- always! -- room for quality, regardless of the actual number of any one type of restaurant. In fact, there exists in Shanghai a gaping hole for it. The quality vacuum includes Vietnamese food as well.
That's where the new Pho Season is heading, though I have no idea how earnest they are in saying that -- they don't open until Monday. But they will be charging 48rmb for a bowl of the Vietnamese noodle soup, the priciest in town, and the owner, Ly Heng (of French restaurant Nova, across the street) relayed a story about sending back the chef from Saigon for using instant soup bases, tons of MSG, and too much sugar. Instead, he's already replaced the Vietnamese-Vietnamese chef with a French-Vietnamese chef, from Paris, and says Pho Season will make "the most authentic" bowl in town, using Qingdao beef and primarily imported ingredients. (No meatballs or tripe, though.)
There will only be one bowl of pho on the menu, actually, despite the pho-centric name. The rest of the menu spans banh mi, the Vietnamese sandwich, com tam, the "broken rice" family of dishes, bun bo, and other cold noodle dishes, fresh spring rolls, etc. Ly is going for "Vietnamese in the style of Paris's Chinatown." Apparently, some people know what that means. Dinner for one under 100rmb, opens on Monday, March 22.
Pho Season, here's your SmSh listing, with address and a map.
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