(NOTE: This stall has moved out since end April 2017. Sob!)
A TASTE OF VIETNAM @ TANGLIN HALT
Happiness is discovering a new food stall at your local hawker centre and that it actually offers good tasty food, providing yet another meal choice whenever my stomach growls. Thanks to a friend and fellow Tanglin Halt resident who featured the new Vietnamese stall on FB, I finally got round to checking it out.
ABC Pho – A Taste of Vietnam is located at the Tanglin Halt coffee shop that housed the very popular nasi bryani stall in the mornings. It’s probably because of the stiff competition that it wisely decides to only open from 4-10pm daily (closed on Tuesdays). It’s run by a petite young Vietnamese lady who speaks much better Mandarin than I do. (*shy*) Upon approaching the stall, she will asked if you prefer beef or pork (there’s also chicken), noodles or rice.
The Pho Bo or Beef noodles have a variety of styles to choose from – thin slice meat, meatballs, beef shank, or a mixture of any of the 3 items, which will be served with mixed vegetables. The Pho Heo or Pork noodles is likewise – you can choose between thin sliced meat, meatballs or pork leg, while Pho Ga or Chicken noodle only have one choice – thin sliced meat. Items are decently priced from $3.50 to $6.00. She also sells her own bottled and canned soft drinks at $1.20 each as she practically has the whole coffee shop to herself during her opening hours.
I went for the #1 – thin sliced meat with mixed vegetables with the thin white flat noodles and it was served in a big bowl of steaming hot broth well garnished with spring onions and white onions, with a plate of fragrant mint leaves, sweet sauce (“for the meat”),a slice of lime and 4 thinly-sliced orange chili which the lady was very persistently in informing, “Be careful, this is VERY hot!”
I’m not exactly a big fan of pho – I prefer the dry vermicelli type – but whoa, this pho was really satisfying, giving me a real heartwarming feeling by the end of it. And this is coming from a non-soup person on a rather hot and sticky Thursday evening! The ingredients were fresh, soup was truly tasty and made even more so with the mint leaves, and yes, the chili slices were VERY hot, even for a very small bit!
Well, so glad we have a new food stall in the market to choose from, and with a good foreign flavour at that. Pretty sure it will become one of my favourite haunts especially when I have a hot soup with meat craving. 🙂
ABC Pho is located at the Peking Room coffee shop, Blk 49 Tanglin Halt Road #01-365. Opens from 4-10pm daily, closed on Tuesdays.
(Note: They will be closed from 28 May to 7 June 2016 according to the notice on the stall.)
Musings on the M49 