While the culinary history of Pho is still a matter of some dispute, there can be no doubt that #PhoOfJuly needs to become a thing in the United States.
I’ve received some feedback from pho diehards that you should be eating no less than 10 bowls of pho during the 31 days you have available to you, or questions of should you just eat it on the 4th of July. But since few people have attempted to codify it, here’s how I observe it then, and you may want to see if you can apply it to your own routine in future July months pho the rest of your life.
To properly celebrate:
You have to eat at least 4 bowls of pho in July. Ideally one per week. You can add your fixings to your pho any way you like. Take a picture, hashtag it #PhoOfJuly. Simple. Even better if you can give a review or a shoutout on Yelp or Google to your favorite pho spot.
As an FYI or a PhoYI, as the case may be, no one is going to respect you much if you try to pass off those cup of pho instant noodles, or the vegetarian versions with quinoa, kale, broccoli or whatever. GTPO. Eating a bowl of ramen or some other beef soup also totally does not count.
To keep it fun, the most common preference is to of course find Vietnamese, Lao, Hmong, and Khmer versions in your city. It would be great to find at least one home-made version, but if you don’t know any good cooks, that could be a problem. You could of course also try to go to that one restaurant in Seattle where they claim to have the world’s largest bowl of Pho, but that’d get expensive if you don’t live there.
Of course, Belgium is where some of the best pho in the world can be found, according to some reliable sources, but that’s a whole different article! Enjoy, and I look forward to seeing your pictures of #PhoOfJuly!
ThaoworraDome 