Author: Raymond Johnston Published on 13.12.2021 16:52 (Updated on 14.12.2021) Reading time: 5 minutes
Sunday, December 12th is "Phở Day", which is a popular Vietnamese noodle soup. This weekend, 17 countries/regions in the world opened noodle-themed graffiti on the Google homepage, and the Czech Republic is one of them.
This day was celebrated for the first time in Vietnam in 2018. "Phở, the national dish of Vietnam [is] an aromatic soup filled with delicious broth, soft rice noodles, fresh herbs and thinly sliced meat," Google wrote on its dedicated doodle website, and Added that soup is "a valuable element of Vietnamese heritage" and "phở-nomenal!"
In Vietnam, phở is eaten for breakfast, but internationally it is more popular for lunch or dinner. News server CNN lists it as the world’s 20 best soups along with borsht, gazpacho and gumbo. Lonely Planet recommends it as one of the best hangover remedies when traveling, and Rough Guides praises it for being easy on a budget.
Phở appeared in northern Vietnam from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, near Hanoi. The dish slowly began to permeate the southern part of the country and showed regional differences.
During the French occupation of Indochina, beef was very popular among the rich. Around the same time, the French introduced the concept of making soup from bones. Although beef is expensive, beef bones are cheap and can easily be used to make a new and affordable hot dish for laborers. With the addition of vegetables, spices and a small amount of meat, a new cooking trend was born.
Na šachtě, Praha 7-Holešovice
Nádražní, Praha 5-Smíchov
Legerova, Praha 2-Nové Město
Pražská, Rumburk-Rumburk 2-Horní Jindřichov
The Czech Republic’s interest in Vietnamese cuisine began to take off in the 2000s, when many Vietnamese restaurant owners began to serve their own cuisine instead of Chinese or Thai cuisine.
Since soup has always been the mainstay of Czech cuisine (fish soup is a traditional part of Christmas dinner), phở is naturally suitable for the local cooking scene.
Especially in Prague, most areas have at least one Vietnamese tavern. According to a recent poll of Vietnamese restaurant owners, this is a cheap and delicious lunch option and the most ordered of all Vietnamese dishes on the local menu.
Phở, served in the Czech Republic, is a typical North Vietnamese variety that uses a lot of fresh herbs such as basil and coriander. The southern phở bowl features garlic, turmeric, curry and coconut milk.
Thanh George Nguyen, owner of Hanoi Square, which opened in Prague in 2020, told the Czech news server Novinky that there is no right or wrong to serve this dish.
“The taste of the north and the south are different, but there is no right or wrong. Many places in the Czech Republic claim to have authentic phở. But there is no real phở,” he said.
What sets phở apart is a cooking process that uses simmering ingredients such as roasted ginger, fennel seeds, star anise, and cinnamon to create a multi-layered flavor and clear, aromatic broth.
The establishment of Vietnamese communities on Czech lands can be traced back to the 1950s, when communist Czechoslovakia began to provide education and training for citizens of North Vietnam. After 1989, many of them decided to stay permanently, and the number of immigrants has steadily increased since then.
Today, the Czech Republic has a considerable Vietnamese population-between 60,000 and 100,000, making it the third largest group of foreigners after Slovaks and Ukrainians. The largest Vietnamese community lives in Prague, but there are also famous enclaves in Karlovy Vary and Cheb.
The Vietnamese population of the Czech capital is mainly concentrated in the southern part of the city. Prague 4 includes the Libuš and Kunratice districts, collectively known as Little Hanoi, and is home to a complex of Sapa markets, restaurants, food stalls, specialty grocery stores, and a Buddhist temple.
This is also the best place to enjoy a steaming bowl of phở (Anthony Bourdain put a famous bowl in a bowl in Sapa in his "No Reservation" episode dedicated to Prague in 2010 ).
Raw beef phở bò can be made with raw beef, roast beef or boiled beef. There is also a chicken variety called phở gà, which is less common on the Prague menu, phở hải sản, a seafood version. Of course, vegetarian and vegetarian versions abound today, although the tofu version called phở cải lương created in Vietnam in the 1920s has never really become popular.
Phở trộn is not a soup, but a salad, consisting of ingredients that can be put in the soup but without the broth. Similarly, phở cuốn is a package of meat and vegetables.
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Nguyen in Hanoi Square is part of a new generation of Vietnamese restaurants that try to introduce Czechs to the world beyond phở.
Other notable newcomers include Czech-Vietnamese brothers Khanh and Giang Ta, who are behind a series of Vietnamese fusion restaurants (Gao Den, Taro and the latest Dian) that have achieved local success and gained international recognition.
Of course, everyone still provides a bowl of ordinary phở.
I teach Czech and English
Although Czech-Vietnamese cuisine continues to evolve, the old dishes of Prague still exist. Ha Minh and his sister Ha Linh, the duo behind Madame Lyn's, one of Prague's earliest Vietnamese restaurants, shared this tried and true recipe with us a few years ago.
*Note: The amount of ingredients depends on the number of people you serve.
Now is the perfect time to enjoy a bowl of phở and celebrate its interesting place in Czech culinary history.
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