Eating Route
I stayed up one night planning my eating and walking route for pho the next day. Walking was essential to the plan, to burn calories and reduce my guilt for the amount of gluttony I was about to commit.
A day’s route in a loop from my hostel, in District 1:
- 10 a.m. brunch: Pho Hung (rated a classic by the blog Travelfish)
- Coffee break at Phuc Long Coffee & Tea Express (locals congregate here; the rich milk coffee, or ca phe sua, is delicious)
- 2:30 p.m. late lunch: Propaganda (not for pho but bun thit nuong and the propaganda mural art)
- 6 p.m. dinner: Pho Phuong (rated the best by the blog Vietnam Coracle)
- Evening snack: Egg banh mi from around the corner of my hostel at Hong Hoa
Pho Hung: Herb pile 
Prep work begins
The Pho Fugue
When I eat pho, I enter a fugue where I am just a beast, my five senses alert and trained on the survival instinct of eating. I see the medley of colors, of green basil, cinnamon broth, red chili sauce. My fingers rip basil leaves, and my tongue feels the texture of the strips of beef flank. I taste sweetness, salt, bitter garlic, acidic peppers. I hear the din of my neighbors chatting, but it seems as though they are far away, on the other side of a glass wall.
Some time passes. I emerge from this state in a hot mess of sweat, nose dripping, mouth on fire, my bowl empty.
