http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/eat/worl...067535?page=0,0

28. Pho, Vietnam

This oft-mispronounced national dish (“fuh” is correct) is just broth, fresh rice noodles, a few herbs and usually chicken or beef. But it’s greater than the sum of its parts -- fragrant, tasty and balanced, the polar opposite of the moto rider who brought you to the little café where you find the best stuff.

30. Goi cuon (summer roll), Vietnam

This snack made from pork, shrimp, herbs, rice vermicelli and other ingredients wrapped in rice paper is served at room temperature. It’s “meat light,” with the flavors of refreshing herbs erupting in your mouth.

Dipped in a slightly sweet Vietnamese sauce laced with ground peanuts, it’s wholesome, easy and the very definition of “moreish.”

maybe because i am bias but i think pho taste way better than sushi

sushi is so over rated

Nice. Good list. So many Canadian delicacies made the list. Poutine, maple syrup, yeah!!!
But the summer roll? It's a seasonal food now? It's called spring rolls because of the spring onions being the essential part of the ingredients. Meh, people don't care about authenticity anymore. I love spring rolls but it must come with peanut sauce. Oh yeah!

says who? oh, by whites.

i kinda have an obsession with maple syrup. i'll put it on almost anything. i especially like it was a dip for fried food (fritters, fries chicken nuggets, corn dogs, etc).

so glad to see it make the list.

^
samnang, you are a pro. You know your maple syrup. You are just perfect so don't you ever change

lol
Why are donuts and burgers ahead of pho? I was born and raised in America and I will say that donuts and burgers are very overrated. Even the best burger or donut can't compete with average quality pho.

has anyone here taste the thai Massaman curry?? is it really that good??

i don;t know i don;t really trust white people taste cause they make a big deal about pad thai but when i taste it i didn;t like it at all

I am never a fan of when it comes to rating cuisine/food. Everyone has his own tastes. My fav might not be yours and yours might not be mine, so it's pointless to rate, let alone rank them.
It's like telling someone what his own favorite color should be.

This is done by a group of CNN staffs out having a group lunch or something 'cause there are way too many food in the world to enjoy.

Totally agreed, lol
Well, it's the westerners' opinion, in China, west opinion on food is COMPLETELY INSIGNIFICANT, like infinitely close to zero

Massaman curry is good. It goes well with nan (Indian flat bread) or just plain baguettes. It taste very similar to Vietnamese curry.

Haha hamburgers and donuts Even though I'm not a fan of phở, I got to agree with AsiaticGlory, how the heck did burgers and donuts even make the list? Perhaps because it was done by a group of CNN staff having lunch out and donuts/burgers are among American's favorites


Among the Top 5, I only like Peking duck
Chocolate, I love it, but I'd get sick of it after eating the 5th piece. Masami curry, well I never liked curry to begin with. I can't take raw meat so sushi is out. Neapolitan pizza is too ordinary. Only Peking duck is worth the list.

i agree princess i only like peking duck

I nominate xixon to do the rating and ranking. At least I know Pho will take the 1st spot. Right xixon.

You've got to be kidding me!!!!! Not one Cambodian food made the list? Why is CNN always bias against Cambodia and hates Cambodia?? First they said the Cambodian government can't be reached twice during the border clash with Thailand and only interviewed Thailand. Then they thought Cambodia was in Africa and now this? This is pathetic really CNN favors everything Thailand no wonder they put at them at number one. I'm happy to see Pho and Goi cuon on the list though but Vietnamese spring rolls are my favorite I make it all the time lol

^ Don't blame them. Those people at CNN havent tried cambodia foods yet. But why would cambodia foods make it on the list anyway

Nope it won't. Both bún bò Huế and canh bún beat phở far.



No lol. It's not called spring roll because of the "onions" or whatever you call it. Spring roll is a translation from Chinese. They eat some sort of fried roll in spring festival or something and they call it spring roll. The Vietnamese salad roll is called "gỏi cuốn" in our language, which is literally translated as salad roll lol. When it comes to the US, the Americans just call it spring roll (which referred to a different Chinese roll) because well, there was no other term to call it. Vietnamese started to call it that way too because...lol because Americans call it that way haha. Then some places just use summer roll instead to distinguish it from the fried spring rolls. But the accurate name should be "salad roll" and that's what they should call it.

Peking duck and Massaman curry are being overrated, they taste like $hit honestly...

i remember eating them at Chiang mai and Bejing, not that good...

Pho and goi cuon are way better.. but... we only have over 90mil people.

viet people should advertise other viet food instead of just pho cause those white people only ever heard of pho and spring/egg roll and thats why it is on the list even though pho and spring/egg roll is not the best food from vn

I love Peking duck

And i love gỏi cuốn too.

However, I don't like phở. For some reason it doesn't fit my taste.

Peking duck and Massaman curry are being overrated, they are tasteless honestly...

i remember eating them at Chiang mai and Bejing, not that good...

Peking duck is way too sweet, and in Chiang mai they put too much coconut milk in the curry..

Pho and goi cuon are way better.. but... we only have over 90mil people.

Thuong says it tastes like $hit and xixon likes it. Does that mean xixon likes to eat ...

Cambodia has Ka Tieu which is similar to Pho but different and Cambodia has Prahok and Nom Pachop which is popular Khmer dish in Vietnam and Samlor Korko which is the number one dish every Cambodians love. I know Thai's stole a lot of recipes from Khmer's and promote as their own. But CNN is Bias that's all I could say! It should be one food from every country!! What you mean why would Cambodia be on it? Cambodia was here longer before Viet's and Thai';s that's why!!

^ cambodia foods should taste better because cambodia were here longer.

True. There are so many Viet food that are way better than phở

I think Vietnamese cuisine is truly rich for the size of Vietnam. It's only a very small country the richness of its cuisine is equivalent to those of much larger countries. I mean even if you count noodle soups alone we have tons and tons of noodle soups, no one can name all, yet the Westerners only know about phở lol.


Oh Anthony Bourdain said this
"[Vietnam] has the best food per square foot of any country I've been to. There's nothing like street food, especially in Asia."

Where is the thank button?

i think if this is about 50 most delicious food in the world, it'd be 50\50 vietnamese food. or worse 49 but the first is Vietnamese food of course.

What I meant is that Cambodian food should not be avoided because we deserve a chance like everyone else and our country came before Thailand and Vietnam.

@ThuongLuong: I wouldn't say that. There are lots of delicious food in other countries too



I've been to Cambodian restaurant and I got to say you guys got some really nice food



No Naga, Ka Tieu is not like phở at all! Vietnamese are very specific about their noodles. I noticed that so many people call noodles in other Southeast Asian countries as their version of phở, eg: Thai pho, Khmer pho, Lao pho...Well, it's so misleading because they're not phở at all. Vietnamese wouldn't call them phở, we would call them "hủ tiếu" instead. Not any rice noodle soup is called "phở" in Vietnamese We have many terms like phở, bún, bánh canh, hủ tiếu, miến to refer to different types of rice noodles

^ xixon has taste? amazing? I would doubt whatever she says.

asean.asia,are you nine years old?If you like xigon,just say so.

^ No Doublemint, I only like you.

Very creative explanation XigonCongchua. But there are English people from Britain here who keep insisting that the Chinese make egg rolls and the reason why they named Vietnamese rolls spring roll is because of the spring onions. Maybe they could be right. The one in the list is 30. Goi cuon (summer roll), Vietnam. I noticed spring onion is not listed as one of the ingredients. I dont know, I will tell them they are out of their mind. BTW, in Hanoi they prefer phở cuốn over other varieties of cuốn.

Vietnamese people like fresh rolls in general. They have many types of fresh rolls. Well Vietnamese food are usually fresh in general

I wonder which one you guys like best.


Nem nướng cuốn. The roll itself and the sauce are just superb, better than gỏi cuốn IMO



Phở cuốn. It looks pretty pleasing to the eyes. The wrapping is like bánh cuốn imo, but I prefer the rice paper wrapping



Gỏi cuốn. Probably the most common form because the ingredients are the cheapest



Cuốn Huế. Got its name because it came from Hue



Bì cuốn. Personally I don't like this. The meat just doesn't taste right with the veggies and rice paper



Bò bía. An adaptation from a Fujianese roll (though the original Fujianese rolls don't use this thin rice paper like Vietnamese, the original version looks more like burritos). Personally I don't like the lapcheong and the egg in this



Fujianese popiah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popiah

I think it would taste better with that wrapping ^^ The ingredients of popiah don't taste good with rice paper in my opinion.



P/S: I don't think onion is an essential ingredient of gỏi cuốn so I don't think that explanation is correct.

Don't be hating pho... it's by far the best dish coming from Vietnam. I agree that there are other dishes from VN that people could try like Bun Bo Hue but on a global scale it would have a hard time selling because people aren't accustom to eating pig blood, pig feet, etc. If you got to sell a dish to everyone, pho is that dish.

Lastly, I think some non-viet americans (not being racist) look at pho differently because I see them talk about pho but post images of pho (like the one at the website) that looks nothing like it. Kind of like how Taco Bell doesn't taste anything like authentic greasy tacos from Mexico. If you are eating pho that looks like this:



Get out of the restaurant! You might as well buy yourself a box of instant pho noodles and eat it at home. The cook doesn't know what they are doing. And I know this is usually an issue with restaurants that aren't owned by Vietnamese because no Vietnamese would serve pho like that.



Lastly, this is what pho is suppose to look like. Not some over decorative dish. Seriously, every time I look at this picture it makes my mouth water. How can you dislike Pho?



Finally, I agree everyone has their own taste. For me, sushi is definitely up there. Pho would be #1 or #2. Sushi or rather sashimi would be up around #3-5. But the only raw fish I like to eat is tuna. Every other raw fish is gross. All sushi rolls are gross too (for beginners).

Are you serious? Do you live in the booney of some chinatown? I'd forgive you if you don't live in a major city but there are delicious or must I say to die for gourmet hamburger restaurants in major cities and I'm sure it's definitely better than average pho. There's no craving like a craving for some really good burgers with fries and a dr.pepper. OK I sound like a total fatty but I'm not haha.

However I can agree with you about burgers and donuts are way overrated.






Yes Peking duck is great! Xigon always makes me hungry. Woman go make me something!

LOL is this from Brodard? I wish I lived closer to OC so I can go there more!

As someone who have eaten a fair share of pho and hamburgers in America, I would pick pho over any fast food hamburger or gourmet hamburgers. Unfortunately, most people in America get their hamburgers from fast food chains, not gourmet restaurants. Still I don't think there is a huge difference between gourmet hamburgers and fast food hamburgers except for the high price tag you got to pay for it. I wouldn't pay $10 dollars for a gourmet hamburger and I know some fast food chains do serve higher quality hamburgers that sell for $5-6 dollars. Still I would pick pho over hamburgers overall. Hamburgers are processed with hundreds of different ingredients (from the bread, to the sauce, to the cheese, to the meat). They mix all types of ingredients that you can't even pronounce to make the hamburger. Don't believe me? If you live in America you can pick up bread you got at home and look at the ingredients. Take a look at the ingredients in cheese, ketchup, processed ground meat, other seasonings. Read it all and count them all.

Pho uses 10 or so whole ingredients that you know like: water, onions, beef slice, bone marrow, etc. These are all hand picked ingredients, it's not processed.

The people who crave hamburgers are people who like the juicy fatness of it. People who crave pho are ones who like the salivating aroma, the broth, the rice noodles, the warmth, the love in the dish. This is why people would still eat pho on a hot summers day. How many Americans do you know would eat a soup (like Campbells) on a very hot day during summer? Maybe if they were sick/ill and couldn't drive to nearest pho restaurant...

It's just my opinion but I never liked the taste of phở. It's not bad but it's just well...I just don't like it. It's too ordinary and too plain. However, I like most other Vietnamese noodles like bún bò huế, bún ốc, and bánh canh cua! I'm not pleased with phở representing the cuisine of Vietnam at all lol. I wish it's something else.

P/S: Actually I like phở gà (chicken phở) I don't like phở bò (beef phở). Nonetheless, I would still choose bánh canh cua over phở gà.



Just to make lychy more hungry

Bánh canh cua






Darn I'm making myself hungry lol



Everyone? More like the Western people since they're dominating the globe now, anything is considered good on global scale as long as it's sold well in Western countries. We're all ignoring people from other cultures, other parts of the globe who might have different taste. Anyway, since when did we have to try to cater to the Western taste? Blood curd is awesome. It's a shame that Westerns are not familiar to it.



Maybe. But that stuff is sold everywhere.


Btw, if any of you guys here want to try out various Vietnamese food in Southern Cali, go to this place. I highly recommend it
http://www.brodard.net/
Brodard Restaurant
9892 Westminster Avenue #R
Garden Grove, California 92844
Hours:
Sunday - Monday:
8:00 AM - 9:00 PM
Closed Tuesday
Wednesday - Saturday:
8:00 AM - 9:00 PM

^ It says 9:00 PM up there but they actually close at 7:00 PM or so! If you come late, you won't get anything.

But don't order gỏi cuốn there though, they're not good as they should be IMO. Just order nem nướng cuốn and other stuff. Oh don't order chả cá Hanoi either! It's tasteless.

Actually, Thai people don't call any noodle dish as "Thai Pho" at all. They always call " Kuay Tiew" which mean rice noodle in Teochew chinese ,or they call " Bamee" which mean egg noodle.
Also, Here in Australia, all of my non-Thai friends simply call " Thai noodle" and there are some of Malaysian and Singaporean friends of mine call "Thai kuay tiew".
But I dont know about how people call them in other part of the world .



For example,
Tom Yum noodle = Kuay tiew Tomyum
Boat noodle = Kuay tiew reu
Sukhothai noodle = Kuay tiew sukhothai

I'm surprised bánh mì isn't on the list. Seems to be very popular and well known with the Americans nowadays.

Actually, I have never seen pho that looked like the first picture. All of the pho that I have ate looked like the second picture.

lol
I wish I could live in an Asian community. Actually, I live in Texas so I am pretty sure I know what burgers taste like. Cooking just isn't a strength of Americans. Then again, America's cooking is getting taken over by fast food. Although I do like steaks, fries, and BBQ.

There is a business idea for you.



When I visited Taiwan, I noticed that the street vendors sold better food than the fancy restaurants.

We are obviously comparing apple to orange here and I don't think there will be an end to the argument because our taste buds would never agree. Matter of fact, I enjoy pho more than hamburger; however, to undermine, for instant, how good a kobe beef burger tastes by saying it's processed with hundreds of below standard ingredients, then not only displaying a narrow perspective of a typical American man who hasn't seen much of the world beyond his immediate surroundings, but you also intend to discredit the art in gourmet burger creation.

Of course everyone is entitled to his but if he wishes to state his opinion in a public forum he might as well be prepared to discuss it further as his opinion might not hold up well under closer scrutiny. Someone might lost all his credibility in this debate when he refuses to pay more than 10 dollars for a gourmet burger. If anyone can go home and perform on the same level as Hubert Keller with his $5000 gourmet burger, the FleurBurger, then I would forever banish myself from all topic regarding food in AF. Sure my example is extreme, but I get sick to my stomach reading ignorant opinions in this forum about food in general.

If you meant to refer to the kitchen knowledge of the average American male then I wholeheartedly agree. However coastal cities such as New York and San Francisco are known for vast cuisines especially gourmet hamburger.

Well well well arent you a typical Texan with your mouth full of fries, steaks and BBQ sauce? haha

http://thai-laos-food.blogspot.com/2006/07...ho-noodles.html
http://www.lotuscafeabq.com/thai-pho
http://thai-laos-food.blogspot.com/2007/01...oodle-soup.html

plenty of them. Even on youtube.

Isn't that annoying? At least to me. I can't stand the way other Southeast Asians just go around and think any rice noodle can be passed as pho. Even when they don't call it phở, they still refer to their rice noodle as "[enter country] version of phở", like what NagaPrincess did here. She called Ka Tieu the "Khmer version" of phở. I saw Thai people on this forum and other forums did similar thing too.
"We also have pho in our country."
"Really? What is it called?"
"It's called pad Thai in our country"
or
"It's called Kuay Tiew in our country"
or
"It's called Ka Tieu in our country"
WTH lol.

On wikipedia discussions, there were also suggestions coming from some Thai people about merging the articles of phở and Kuay Tiew together into one article because they think Kuy Teo is the Thai version of phở.

They think phở is just any rice noodle and any rice noodle can be referred to as pho. So ignorant.



Here are some comments in the discussion section of wikipedia about pho It's hilarious to me how other Southeast Asians came to this page and reject the notion of "phở" originating from Northern Vietnam because according to them, other Southeast Asian countries have "pho" too rotf

"in thailand, called "kuay tiow" or simply "bowl of noodles" and made of pure rice (no flour). my grandma is 80 and she says she learned how to make it from her grandparents so it must be old. i think pho is just generic term for it but the same thing is eaten all over south asia with different name. must be a really old dish before europe invader i think, maybe china made it up they been eating noodles for thousand years and cultivated rice for even longer. makes sense it might of came from china. saying vietnam or france made up rice noodle is just like saying japan invented the "rice ball" yeah right. (the moviedude)"


"The fact of pho originating from North Vietnam is a misconception. Actually pho "noodles" themselves were around south east asia long before, probably dating hundreds of years. It's quite noticeable in where pho is enjoyed, such as countries like Thailand, Laos, Cambodia ect. Not likley vietnamese influence spread to these countries in such short a time that each country developed such a diverse style. Acutally the majority of the culture/food/ect of the region is directley influenced either by china or thai/siamese. Most ingredients (including the noodles) are written with Thai/Chinese labels. Just in the recent couple decades has pho actually made its way into the USA. Most in part of the influx of South East Asians into the USA, most notible are the Vietanamese refugees from the 60-70's. Prior to that, the South East Asian population was low and Pho was unheard of to the western world. Some shops in California is starting to go beyond "basic" Pho. Just ask a Lao or Thai friend to make some Pho, you'll understand. One thing is for sure, without the Vietnamese, America would have not been able to discover the greatest jewl of South East Asia, Pho."


"Almost all Asian countries have a noodle dish. Where the hell does it say the Vietnamese invented noodles? What they invented was this particular noodle DISH. Of course if you add other crap like coconut juice then it's not pho anymore now, is it?
Hey people here's a question. What if I had a burger and added other crap like bacon to it, would it still be called a burger? Pho came from Laos"


"Lets face it, steamed rice stick, beef broth, and a local few spices. In my opinion, "Pho" as we know it is a product of the greater South East Asia, (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Southern China) and not exclusive to Vietnam (except the name)"[/b]


Rotf those people are hilarious

I'm glad some Vietnamese came and said this. He nailed it down. Not any rice noodle can be passed as "phở"

"This discussion is laughable. In Vietnamese "pho" is not synonymous with noodle; rather, it is the name of a specific noodle dish prepared with a specific kind of rice noodle and specific kind of soup. The Vietnamese have different names for different kinds of noodles (besides "pho", there are also "bun", "mien", "mi",and "banh da") so please don't lump every noodle dish that you know together under the name "pho". If a noodle dish looks different and tastes different from the Vietnamese "pho" then of course it's NOT "pho". Call it by the name it's called in its native country. I don't think the Laotians or the Chinese would be pleased to hear that their noodle dishes are labeled "pho" by some people. (A native Vietnamese)"





I think this is what happened:

- The Vietnamese immigrants brought phở to Western countries and popularized it. Prior to this, the world didn't know much about rice noodle at all, phở were probably the first and most famous rice noodle they knew of, so they started calling every rice noodle dish as pho Other Southeast Asian immigrants then started thinking phở is just rice noodle and they referred to the rice noodle of their country as their version of phở. They did all this without realizing that Vietnamese are very specific about their noodles - noodles with different shapes, different textures are all given different names in Vietnamese, then different broths and different cooking methods also give the dish different names. But things dragged on and a huge misconception about phở was created...to the point when non-Viet people called something like this "phở" as flexzero said

^ Any Vietnamese would know that's not phở at all! Not only are the noodles different (phở is flat rectangular rice noodles, the small thin round rice noodles like in that picture is called "bún", not "phở") but the broth is also different. Yet, like flexzero, I've seen many people label phở with pictures like that, and as a native Vietnamese, of course I'm upset because they're skewing the image of phở. But there's nothing I can do.

Texas has plenty of authentic burgers instead of that fast food crap. If you come here, you will notice that McDonald's and Burger King don't have much customers. Anyway, I think even burgers grilled by amateurs taste better than fast food.

Texans make a lot of good BBQ involving steak, beef brisket, ribs, etc. Like most American food, there is a lack of vegetables except potatoes. One of the things I like about Asian food is the fact they know how to make vegetables taste good. With the exception of Mongol nomads, Asians just don't get enough dairy.

Yup that's why I have been in favor of Asian cuisines although once in a while I cheat myself with a ridiculously delicious burger, fries, and a soda. There is a texas/texas style bbq joint near my work and it's amazing.

Phở made the list which is only expected. I always knew the world will stumble upon it eventually. I come from a long line of Phở eater. I started enjoying Phở before I was even born. My mom ate Phở while she was carrying me so i indirectly ate it. My mom's mom ate Phở and so did her mom before her and this would go back to countless generations. So I think Phở was somehow embedded itself into my gene. Life without Phở is phê, phê thấy mồ (giggling with delight).
All joking aside, I would like to nominate Bún Bò Huế to be the numero uno of all the noodle dishes of the world, the next world, the world beyond and for all time.
For connoisseurs on this forum like XigonCongchua who have higher standard than the average Joe and hold authenticity as a component that must not be overlooked, well I don't know how will you guys response to the fact that the McDonald fast food franchise will me marketing Phở soon. Imagine easily accessed Phở 24/7 anywhere you see the golden arch!
For me, me like very much.
When that is a reality, we can finally say 'Viets will never go hungry again'.

What!?? Are you out of your mind!?? You want to throw our whole sacred cuisine under the bus!?? Why don't you nuke Vietnam while you're at it! I'm not going to go to McDonald's for Phở! They are going to use the broth from a can! The noodles from the instant noodle package! The meat from the frozen breaded mystery meat! And no fresh onions and vegetables! And you want everyone to think that's the best of Vietnamese food! Maaannnnn, someone hose me down with a fire hose please!