Early morning on the streets of Vietnam it's not hard to find a great breakfast. You simply keep an eye open for a doorway full of steam and a cluster of people on knee-high stools. These are sure signs of a good place for noodle soup - pho.
The aromatic fog that wafts like a banner from the soup cauldron and over the customers is the stall's advertisement. The pho vapours are, as one Vietnamese poet puts it, 'like the clouds of incense that make us quicken our steps and climb the mountain in order to arrive at the pagoda'.
Soup is customarily served for breakfast in Vietnam--big bowls of steaming noodle soup, with meat or fish and any number of ingredients added at the last minute, like bean sprouts, coriander, basil, chili peppers, lime slices, and green onions. All, of course, spiced with with plenty of fish sauce (nuoc mam), chili-garlic sauce, and/or hoisin sauce in nearby dipping dishes. It's an unusual melange of cooked rice noodles, raw vegetables and herbs, and shaved raw meat or seafood that cooks in the broth just as it's brought to table.