PhoCali in Chinatown

This past weekend I had the pleasure of joining a friend in Center City for an afternoon of excursions originally intended to be a Chinatown lunch...somewhere.  This flipped back and forth between dim sum and not dim sum, and we decided due to timing that it would be best to hold of on dim sum for another time (earlier) and with possibly more friends in tow.  We began our adventures in Reading Terminal Market, browsing some food books and sampling some Tai from the sushi place.  I love the taste of red snapper; it's one of my absolute favorites offered around here, and it was fresh and tasty to say the least.  Though expensive, that sushi bar consistently delivers quality seafood if you order the right things, and they give the perfect portion sizes for individual pieces of sashimi.  They're not too big like so many other places (this is America after all) but provide enough of a mouthful to satisfy.  As we accepted our economically non-friendly styrofoam, my friend leaned over and whispered that the man and his wife behind the counter were complaining about a pair of customers (who looked like they deserved it) in Vietnamese....  This one event literally made my day.  As we laughed about that and downed our tai, we strolled around the market and decided to try PhoCali in Chinatown for a little bit of SE Asian comfort food: pho, but of course!

As we opened the door to PhoCali, we turned towards each other and out mouthes dropped wide open: the smell was incredible!  I had not smelled the aromas of Asian home cooking since the last time I made some sort of SE Asian styled food for myself during the summer.  The star anise and cinnamon nearly knocked me off of my feet in a good way, and my stomach instantly rumbled uncontrollably.  She and I sat down and swiftly ordered our pho.  I had shrimp pho and she had beef pho with flank and tripe.  We added condiments from the piled herbs and bean sprouts placed between us and the varied bottles set on the windowsill above our heads.  It was a very casual experience and some AMAZING pho.  The rice noodles were thin and long, allowing for maximum "slurpage," and we both could not stop commenting on the pleasantly spiced broth that perfectly seasoned the noodles.  So as we sweated our way through the meal from hot soup and sriracha sauce, the pho really did its trick as a Vietnamese comfort food, moreso than a roast chicken with potatoes and green beans ever could in my book.



We then finished our adventure with a SEPTA ride to Whole Foods on south street where we picked up some university necessities: she got pancake mix and I got a bunch of vegetarian soups and Old Wessex 5 grain multigrain hot cereal (a post on its perfection will follow), as well as at least 5 pounds of gala (yay) apples grown locally which were amazingly cheap for a whole foods chain.