In North America, we’re not used to street food as much. Instead, we like fine dining establishments, where there’s air-conditioning and Michelin-starred chefs preparing their next masterpiece. That’s perfection to so many different North Americans. In Vietnamese though, the tastiest food and the best bites are those that are cooked in carts and trucks right on the streets. Hawkers give out dish after dish in Vietnam of delicious, authentically prepared, flavorful local delicacies that you won’t find anywhere else. They use the ingredients from the environment around them to produce everything from fried seafood balls to noodle soups like pho.
Netflix’s Street Food provides some insight into how the culture works in Vietnamese and elsewhere. The documentary series is produced by the same people overseeing Chef’s Table, a program featuring Michelin-star chefs all over the world. If Chef’s Table is seen to feature the pretentious side of cooking, Street Food is going for the exact opposite. On Street Food, it’s all about good cooking – regardless of who’s creating the dish or what it appears like on the plate. When it goes down good, that’s all that matters. A number of vendors are featured as well as local dishes from all over East Asia.
If you’ve never seen East Asian street food before, this is a great introduction. Nine cuisines are explored in the Street Food series. Other than Vietnamese cuisine favourites, you’ll find south Indian, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesian food, Filipino food, Taiwanese, North Korea, and Japan. For those craving the Vietnamese sandwich banh mi or the popular soup known as pho, Street Food is going to provide a quick look into how these dishes are made and the beautiful people who make them.
In Toronto, authentically prepared Vietnamese cuisine is tough to come by. There are some Vietnamese restaurants in the GTA who purport delivering genuine Vietnamese taste but when you get down to the nitty gritty, it pales in comparison with the real stuff.
At Toronto Pho, it’s anything but that. We work hard to provide the tastiest, most genuine Vietnamese cuisine there is. Although pho is our specialty, we also serve several other East Asian dishes our customers love. If you want to get a quick glimpse into some of our inspiration, check out Street Food on Netflix. Any time you’re in Toronto and are looking for a Vietnamese pho restaurant, visit Toronto Pho.
