Flavor Boulevard

The pho was good. The broth was beefy and the noodle was brothy. Every twirl you manage to pick up with the pair of disposable bamboo chopsticks was worth inhaling a deep breath for the flavor to soak your taste buds and dally with your turbinate. The tripe and the sweet onion rings texture-wise taste about the same to me (see, tripe tastes just fine!), which is good, since I’m soft-tongued and those little zings of spiciness can easily bring me to tears. Tendon and Flank were, frankly, tender, but still a good change of texture from the lean brisket consistency and the rice noodle naivete.

Rosie’s Pho does not serve just pho. It serves a whollota things. Mudpie once amusedly predicted that one day its menu will include pizza and hamburgers. But no, it has stopped expanding, at a menu large enough that I had to carouse over for 5 minutes to find my order amidst various noodle and rice dishes. But my dad didn’t take that long, and he didn’t even have glasses on. So here’s his order:

Grilled beef chunk steak served over rice. Don’t you just love the colorful display? I have no idea what the sauce to the side was, he didn’t have it with his rice, and I was busy snouting in my soup, so I didn’t remember to chopstick a taste, until now. My take is soy sauce with ground peanuts, but please let me know if you have a guess at what it is.

Another shot close up. I just really like the colours, the flowery arrangement, the inviting variety. We see fresh cucumber, tomato, lettuce, onion; we see stir fried bell pepper, more onion; and we see grilled marinated beef, and very little rice. The Vietnamese dishes here are so Americanized that meat overpowers everything. Anyway, dad said he remembered the beef here used to be more tender. Maybe the chef was a little occupied with my humongous USS Pho, and chunky beef got overcharred. Sorry for the hype over the colours.

But we have desserts to make up for it. 🙂

I know, that is not the most dazzling presentation. We had to ask for to-gos, because we sat there too long to let the dust food settle before ordering dessert, and ended up running out of time. In the plastic cup is green tea ice cream, which tastes extremely like banyan pandan leaf (lá dứa) to me. My favorite. I can come here just for this ice cream. Avocado bubble tea and chocolate Capuccino bubble tea were pleasant endings as well. What else can you expect?

Lunch for three with desserts costs a total of $36, tip and tax included. (I kinda miss dining in Vietnam, no tip and tax there.) And we were rolling out filled to the brim.

Address: Rosie’s Phở – Asian noodle soup
2001 Texas Ave S #300
College Station, TX 77840
(979) 680-8580

There is no Hong Kong Market or Bellaire (or 99 Ranch Market or Bolsa, if you are Californian) in College Station, but there is Vietnamese food here. Rosie’s Pho (noodle soup) opened about two years ago. We were among their first customers, and the owner of the place, Ms Hồng, even remembered me when I came back a few months later with my friends. Talk about hospitality. (Guess how we know she’s the owner: hồng means rose in Vietnamese.)

We came early for lunch. When we finished our meal at around 12:30, the place was a whole lot more crowded. It’s good to sit again at the familiar booth we always sit, close to the entrance and far away from the kitchen’s action. It’s also good to see the same ole expression on the cashier’s face, definitely not unfriendly, but so contemplative that makes me wonder if he has important exchange going on at the stock market or something of sort. It feels casual, and you don’t need to put up big smiles here for a show of warmth. The warmth comes to you in a bowl.

I ordered a the-more-the-merrier karnival of beef brisket, tendon, flank, and tripe phở. Large bowl. Huge mistake. No, WAIT. No. Don’t leave. Let me explain. The mistake is mine, not the pho’s or the cook’s. I had no idea what I was up against (I don’t remember it being like this before). For all its goodness and meatiness and brothiness, as you can see above, look at the size of the bowl! I could take a bath in there. And I would drown. But before I do, shall we take a minute to spot the white bundle at 4-5 o’clock of the bowl? It’s Tripe. Tendon and Flank were camera-shy and hidden under Brisket. If you are grossed out by the thought of eating anything animalia, muscle, but non-flesh, offensively commonly known as offals, and think that they taste gross, let me beg to differ that they are texture food, and they do have their unique charms. If you chew gum, why not give tripe a try?

The herb plate accompanying the USS Pho here has the basics: cilantro, rau hung, rau ram, bean sprout, interestingly-cut pieces of lime, and (the American substitution for cayenne pepper) jalapeno. I eat my pho without any condiments or herbs, but little mom likes the greens and the bean sprout…

… which makes her bowl look so much prettier than mine.

(To be continued)

Address: Rosie’s Phở – Asian noodle soup
2001 Texas Ave S #300
College Station, TX 77840