We almost didn’t make it to Anan for the $100 pho. VietJet, thus far on a 100% track record in their attempt to fuck-up our holiday, first cancelled it, then gave us a new flight out from 10am to 2.30pm, and then once checked-in, moved it to 4pm first, before delaying it to 5pm. Our dinner reservation is 7pm, not leaving us much time for the one hour flight, collection of bags (if the useless pricks have remembered them), and the thirty minute transfer from airport to hotel, before checking in and making the 7 minutes – but really 27 minute – traffic packed drive for what we could have walked in 22 minutes. I sat in the departure lounge, Strongbow in hand to both calm my raging temper and the guilt that I had just clattered a tiny child over the border after she ran into my kneecap. Sophie cracks a joke about wearing the Burberry-esque check shorts and red polo shirt VietJet uniform for Halloween whilst I consider my outfit in a semi-aroused state. Perhaps I could go as a depressed backpacker? Maybe Tom Hanks’ character in the terminal? The options are endless, just like our flight time.
We get to dinner at 7.27pm. Could have been so much later had the hotel not been trained at such matters; taking pictures of our passports, getting my date of birth, mothers maiden name, PIN number, and passwords to effectively check us in whilst I mutter ‘faster faster’ to the taxi driver like he was giving me a handjob and not taking me to my dinner. I was in a foul mood when we arrived, Sophie warning me to get out of it quickly, this being her birthday meal after the real birthday at Morning Glory was dogshit for everything bar the company. We get a phojito, which is a mojito but muddled with herbs, chilli, star anise, and cinnamon bark. It’s brilliant. I expect it will catch on. I might message Pho about it.
It’s important to establish some facts about the $100 pho which we have pre-ordered. The price is for two and includes the aforementioned phojito, some dishes for which Anan has gained its Michelin star, and the main event. Whether or not you consider the £74 value very much depends on your starting point; pho can be found pretty much everywhere in Vietnam for a pound or two, though you’d struggle to eat a meal for two in the UK for much less. The first bite is molecular pho, a kind of El Bulli-esque spherified ball of perfumed beef stock with a little beef tartare and truffle on top for texture. It’s my least favourite of the courses; smoke sits too high in the mix and, truth to be told, I’ve never really understood the point of spherication. Much more interesting is ‘egg pho’; slow cooked duck egg, caviar, pho jelly, a slightly over-stabilised pho foam and pho scraps. It is, at its very core, egg and caviar, a trusted combination and one that works with the gentle back-notes of herb and spice. I finish mine and then finish Sophie’s. The final course before the main event is a roaring success of foie gras in more beef stock, this time intensely smokey with aged beef fat in a way that Gareth does at Ynyshir. There is nothing dainty about this. It’s spectacular.
The pho arrives. First a bowl of noodle soup with plenty of spring onions, then as a separate board of A5 wagyu, a bouquet of herbs and red chilli, a bowl with lime, another bowl with chilli and hoisin sauce, and another of truffle purée. Then the bubbling pot of beef stock bearing half a cows shin, beef meatballs, tongue, and tendons. Chef arrives, a tall handsome man holding a glass of wine, he has the strong facial features that could put him in any Tarantino movie. He tells us to use the bouquet and lime to season as we wish, the bubbling cauldron of beef stock to reheat our own pho, as well as adding as many of the beefy elements as we wish. The Wagyu is to be rolled-up and dipped for a second or two. I ask him where the ideal of truffle came from. “Because it makes the pho taste better” he responds. Cooking really is that simple.
Unsurprisingly it tastes a million and one miles away from the side street pho stalls. The A5 is sublime, buttery rolls of gentle perfection that melt away to nothing. The marrow is rich and soft, the tendons soft with just a little bite, the tongue gently livery, and the meatballs firm and beefy. The noodles are the best I have ever eaten. We season with more acidity, more herbs, more heat, cleaning out the truffle between us. I suppose it’s lost all semblance to a humble and cheap dish, but I could eat this everyday and not feel guilty. It’s just flavour upon flavour upon flavour.
They send a birthday dessert for Sophie, a delicious ginger crème brûlée that I eat most of, along with fish sauce caramel chocolates that I can admire without enjoying. We move to Nhau Nhau, the cocktail bar in the basement, for more petit fours and some herbal tea. I finish up on a gold flaked martini with a little spoon of caviar and truffle because it’s £16 here and God-knows-how-expensive back home. And that’s the appeal of Asia; a continent that you could do very cheaply if you so wished, or could use as excuse to lavish yourself in the things that are too expensive back home. We choose the latter, paying the £150 for two and sauntering out into the humid air to tick-off the rest of the cocktail bars on the list. Pot Au Pho by Anan is frequently ridiculous, slightly absurd, but at all times interesting. It’s also outrageously fun. It takes the humble cooking of one of the great countries in the world and spins it on its head. We almost never made it. I’m so glad that we did.
9/10
I’m crap at social media. Sign up to the newsletter here.
https://blog.us14.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=08c98db0e9d6eb9e5b54695a1&id=eda85ee6f4
