Today, took a trip with Mama's Boy and DEE to Pho Tau Bay, a restaurant located in the most run down strip mall in the universe, on the West Bank Expressway between Stumpf and Lafayette.
In most respects, Pho Tau Bay is like many other Vietnamese restaurants, with the different soups, rice or vermicelli dishes and a few Vietnamese po boys. But what really sets PTB apart are its soups, or more specifically, the beef broth.
I find it hard to explain to people, but there's something sublime, complex and, yet, still completely simple about the broth there. Which is exactly the reason it is my favorite--- this simplicity allows you to enjoy pho for what it is without being distracted by other notes.
For comparison's sake, eating the pho at Tan Dinh, while not an unpleasant experience, throws too many flavor bells and whistles at your palate. It loses the basic beefy backbone that Pho Tau Bay delivers and keeps delivering until the bowl is dry.
Today was Mama's Boy's first pho eat (his throat was sore), and he loved it. Earlier, we also had some spring rolls dipped in fish sauce. MB was also a fish sauce virgin, whose cherry burst with the delight of a girl from Westwego on her 11th birthday.
DEE, just back from a trip to Destin, sand in his brain, had one of the vermicelli dishes with the egg rolls. Nearly emptied his plate, which is saying something as DEE usually eats like a rabbit.
So, if you're hungry for soup and it's not a Thursday or a Sunday (they are closed on those days... must be some kind of strange Antarctic Orthodox religious thing), go there. And eat soup.
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