Jing (real name is Thanchanok Charoenkhatitham), born 1994, is a famous Thai YouTuber, who has a channel with 750,000 followers. In addition to the videos about fashion and beauty services, she usually posts videos featuring her experiences traveling to many countries.

Most recently, Jing had a 2-day-1-night tour to HCM City, where she visited famous attractions and spent time to enjoy Vietnamese traditional dishes, especially banh my (bread), pho (noodle soups served with beef and chicken) and coffee.

For the Thai girl, pho is one of the must-try dishes in Vietnam. Revealing that this was her first time in Vietnam, she said that she did not have to spend much time to find good pho restaurants, because her friends had suggested a restaurant on Pham Hong Thai street in the central business district No 1.

The pho restaurant is mentioned in Michelin Selected in June 2023.

The restaurant serves a variety of pho, but ‘pho tho da’ (broth contained in a stone bowl) is the most wanted.

The noodles are handmade in the kitchen, which is open to diners.

“My friends all say that the restaurant serves the most delicious pho, which must be tried. They also said the interior decor is good, so I decided to go here,” the girl said.

Pho is served with broth and all ingredients put together into a porcelain bowl. However, the way of tasting ‘pho to da’ is a bit different: the broth is served in a hot stone bowl (stone bowl allows to keep temperature). Noodles, beef slices and herbs are put into dishes which will be dipped by diners into the broth.

The ‘pho tho da’ is always hot until diners finish.

“Everything was kept hot and put separately, like having a lau (hot pot),” she noted.

Before she ate pho, a worker at the restaurant showed her how to enjoy the special pho: diners need to dip beef, noodles and herbs into a stone bowl with boiling broth.

The worker also showed her how to create a thick dipping sauce to eat with beef, which enhances the dish.

“The noodles are very soft, just like dim sum. Even though I wasn't hungry, the pho flavor was so delicious that it made me unable to stop eating,” she said.

She admitted that she had a bad impression of pho after trying the dish for the first time at an unknown pho restaurant. However, when she tasted the pho in stone bowl, she changed her mind.

The pho was wonderful, while the price was reasonable at VND100,000 for the bowl. She was satisfied about the quality and services.

Besides pho, Jing tried banh my and drank coffee during the time she stayed in Vietnam. To order banh my, she went well known place on Le Thi Rieng street. It had received positive comments on Google.

Jing ordered a loaf of banh my at VND68,000 and was surprised as the bread was really big. It was cut into two pieces with so much stuffing. Vietnamese people ate banh my together with cucumber and spices.

She really enjoyed the banh my, which had a crispy crust and a rich filling with different types of meat, both lean and fatty, so it was enjoyable to eat.

“It is delicious and crispy. I am not a boaster. It is worth flying here (HCM City) just to enjoy banh my,” she said.

The Thai traveler also expressed her satisfaction about the trip to HCM City. “The dishes I tried all were delicious, and the atmosphere was great,” she wrote. “Banh my is worth trying and pho is so delicious that you can’t stop eating”.

Phan Dau