Girls Just Wanna Have Pho

My obsession for noodles is a direct result of my Mother's love for all things starch.  I love noodles and I don't discriminate.   Spaghetti with red sauce, linguine & clams, angel hair with lemon, butter and cheese, sesame noodles, lo mein with chinese vegetables, egg noodles, spaetzle, kugel (both sweet & savory), soba noodles, fideos, pancit (a Filipino noodle dish), pad thai... but then, there are noodles with broth!   Here is where I start to swoon.

During our childhood we all had chicken noodle soup, I always wanted mine extra noodle-y please (and I still do).  But now there are so many choices to feed this obsession!  Udon, those thick chewy noodles swimming in broth just waiting to be slurped up, ramen noodles (the thing we all survived on during our poor college years), beef noodle soup, Italian wedding soup and last but most certainly not least is Pho.   The Vietnamese "do it yourself" soup.

Although it felt like the middle of July, I needed my fix.  I had to have a bowl of noodles and the weather was certainly not going to deter me.  I was on a mission and there was only one place that would suffice.  I had been craving Pho for weeks and tonight was the night.

My face perched over the bowl inhaling the lime kissed broth, getting a "noodle facial" if you will... knowing full well I'm about to be in gastronomic bliss.  It's the noodles and broth thing that really gets me.  It is the epitome of comfort food.  It's what I want when I'm sick, when I've had a rough day, when it's cold outside or when I just need a little comforting...  and this bowl of noodles did not disappoint.

It was everything I could've asked for.  The broth was sublime, the vegetables still had life to them, the chicken was tender and the noodles were absolute perfection.  I honestly could not have been happier at that moment, with my chopsticks tucked into a pile of rice noodles. 

That's the thing about food, it does more than just feed you...  it nourishes your soul.