Nam So'N

While doing what has become my Sunday Chinatown grocery shopping spin, I stopped by Nam So'N at 245 Grand for some pho. By the way, it's pronounced (fuh) not (foh).

If you really want to learn more about Vietnamese cooking, consider my friend's little sister's blog: gas•tron•o•my. It may just make you seriously consider hating a complete stranger. She appears to somehow have finagled a way to travel through southeast Asia with her boyfriend (some white boy who doesn't fear the innards) and eat fantastically delicious food at rock bottom prices. What the heck did she do in her past life that made her so special? Honestly. And she's tiny too, judging by the pictures. Vain and competitive me doesn't know whether to love her for having the life I'd like to steal or hate her for pulling it off so beautifully. As in, even if you handed me a year in southeast Asia and a white boy who can actually eat, I have special confidence in my ability to bungle even that blessed scenario. Let's face it, some of us don't deserve good luck.

This pho will do in a pinch, when one doesn't have a Cathay Pacific All Asia Pass ($1,499 for flights from NYC, SFO, LAX to HK plus 4 Asian cities ). Are you an banker or trader who recently lost his job? I have a deal for you. Go on a trip and sample all that the Asian Pacific Rim has to offer, while collecting unemployment checks and effectively becoming one of those people you scorned who scam the system for taxpayer dollars. Well, you can tell yourself that you've been paying those dollars for other people for so long, it's time to take your own personal dip in the money pot. Because hey, you'll be hypocrite with a full belly, and the obligatory food coma-induced afternoon naps by the seashore underneath the swaying palm trees will go a long way towards easing your anxiety about the state of your career too.

This? This is the plate of accompaniments that will accompany your pho at Nam So'N. When you go on your tour of Asia and the first time you bow your head over a steaming bowl of noodles, you probably won't have to deal with the awful deficiency of this little plate.

What's wrong with it you ask? There aren't any bloody chilies! Who does that to a woman? I mean, it's cold. You're a Vietnamese restaurant. I ordered pho. What's the problem? Who doesn't like spicy?

It's in the little jar on the table? Oh. Thanks.