Which bowlful would you choose by sight alone?
Detailed reasons are encouraged.
If either of my two readers responds to this, I'll have a couple
more in-depth clues and questions associated with these two dishes.
P.S.- for those of you who don't like tender beef, here's some
tempura shrimp, thin egg noodles, bok choy, and cilantro.
The second and third photo are courtesy of my old friend's
huge success and I wish him the best of luck.
I'd go with the top one myself. Looks like it's highly aromatic and flavorful. Basil?
ReplyDeleteThai basil and cilantro.
DeleteThe top one looks best, but I'd need to investigate first. The second one, no thanks. Obviously contains meat of some sort.
ReplyDeleteSorry PB, look but don't touch!
DeletePerhaps these are one and the same dish at different stages of being eaten?
ReplyDeleteI agree with the first two respondents, the first bowl has more eye appeal and says "eat me". The other bowl is adopting a camouflage strategy in the hopes that roaming predators will over look it.
ReplyDeleteI would go for the first. Definitely better presentation.
ReplyDeleteAnd the second one has some meat and some vegetables that look suspiciously like some of the few veggies that I don't like.
I'll go against the grain here, and pick bowl #2. I like meat. Not sure about the peppers, but both bowls have them....
ReplyDeletePho-get-about-it...Its bowl one! and I am regretting my choice of left over pizza for lunch rather than a bowl of those Vietnamese vittles. Maybe I will put some sriracha sauce on my pizza....
ReplyDeleteOkay, but what's the other bowlful? There's a clue nearby.....
DeleteNearby in the photo is what appears to be a pocket knife, two glasses of clear liquid and an electrical cable. The dish appears to contain some unappetizing lumps of unrecognizable meat and some foul-tasting vegetables like broccoli and brussel sprouts.
ReplyDeleteI got it! You picked up some road kill, gutted it etc, with your pocket knife, threw in the worst veggies you could find and stewed it for 5 hours. Before you taste it you consumed 5 glasses of vodka and you have the electrical cable ready to strangle yourself if it tastes as bad as it looks.
Am I getting warm?
Ouch! Scathing commentary from the gentleman from Rhode Island. Good thing food writers eat the food before tearing it apart!
DeleteNothing personal. Just dredging for clues.
DeleteAnd surely all good cooks know the importance of presentation. Isn't a food writer allowed to comment on that before tasting the food?
Second guess - it's two dishes off the menu at that Noodlehead website whose link is close to the pictures.
ReplyDeleteCorrect! I can only guess it's the Beef Soup, with thin rice noodles, bean sprouts, bok choy, beef broth. I begged him to give me the ingredients, but he told me they wouldn't be revealed until I came out and had it in person. That's a fair request.
DeleteHe and I have a friendly rivalry going in that I love Pho, while he swears by his Thai noodles. He and his business partner are quickly becoming the authority in Thai street noodles.
There's no doubt I will love every dish on his menu. BTW, what do you have against Brussels sprouts?
I with you Pho Brother, The second dish looks good but it looks more like a stew than a soup (not there is any wrong with a stew). I am glad that Impulse shared some photo's of his dishes, they all look delicious. M.J. If you read this blog look out for my brother, I will put the full court press on him to dine at your restaurant.
DeleteHe 'shared' the beef noodle soup photo with me via text, with the caption, 'Kicking Pho's Ass Every Day'. I'm thinking it was his own bowl. The shrimp photo I lifted from Google images. I hope he doesn't mind.
DeleteNobody is "kicking Pho's Ass". I live in the out skirts of Pho central, USA, and we have now at least 7 Viet restaurants with in a 5 mile radius, and they are always packed with customers, again I live 20 miles from at least 100 Pho restaurants. Pho is huge!!
DeleteAnd I'm pretty sure I've eaten at a restaurant in that general vicinity. Son #2 was at college in Pittsburgh and I am sure we went out with him to eat in Shadyside at least once.
ReplyDeleteI am convinced that there is a genetic difference between people who love broccoli and brussels sprouts and those who, like me, taste something awful in them. There is some scientific evidence that confirms this...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2215144/Researchers-discover-people-supertaster-gene-protects-illness.html
It's called being English...:) Spotted Dick anyone?
DeleteNo. Some English people (Tillerwoman for example) are not gifted supertasters like me and they actually like broccoli.
Delete"Supertaster" I like it!
DeleteApparently we (the broccoli haters) are really "supertasters". Interestingly the article says that supertasters are more susceptible to chronic sinus infections (and that used to be true of me although not so much lately.)
ReplyDeleteSeriously I must be tasting something that people who like those veggies are totally missing. And it's not subtle. It's very strong and totally bad.
I think chronic exposure to Marmite pickles the tastebuds and renders them incapable of making objective evaluations of other foods.
ReplyDeleteYesterday, for lunch, I had Pacific Swordfish with green flageolet beans and broccoli romanesco in a blood orange gastrique that was almost a religious experience.
I can't imagine how my palate would have responded to that dish after repeated bludgeoning with Marmite.
I'm with Doc on this one.
DeleteI am totally on the fence. Sitting here in my cubicle after an inactive day I think I'd go for the one with the crunchy beansprouts. Given the same choice on Saturday when TQ and I took Bella for a six and a half mile walk out on the beach on the Rockaway Peninsula and got rather chilly in the process, I'd go for the richer-looking #2.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't complain if the tempura shrimp suddenly appeared here on my desk either of course. Miles to go...