For 42 years without a signboard, Mrs. Tam’s beef noodle shop still attracts a large number of diners waiting in line to get a number to eat pho like in the subsidy period.
Ms. Tran Thi Tam (67 years old), shop owner at 52 Mai Anh Tuan Street, beside Hoang Cau Lake, Dong Da district, Hanoi said that around 6:30 am every morning, there were customers queuing up, peaking at about 7am or so. Each batch has about 8 customers waiting, after a few customers take the number, there are more people to stand.
Ms. Tam said she loves to cook and studied at a food school. In 1981, she decided to open a shop at 78 Hang Non, Hoan Kiem district, later moved to her current address. Up to now, she has been selling pho for 42 years. Queuing for a number was devised by her to form a process of serving customers in order, avoiding confusion and affecting the enjoyment of pho.
Mr. Nguyen Van Dat, a regular customer who lives near the shop, said he was used to the scene of queuing every morning here and found it “like the subsidy period”.
With no prominent signboard, Ms. Tam’s stall is simply a basket of pho noodles, a glass cabinet containing beef, scallions and piles of washed dishes. The broth pot is located in a separate corner. She simmered beef bones for 14 hours, adding cinnamon, anise, ginger and roasted onions to enhance the smell. The stall is located right in front of the shop. In addition to Ms. Tam, the restaurant has 10 employees, in charge of such steps as recording numbers, filling water, vealing pho, cutting meat, and cleaning.
Mrs. Tam’s pho shop is open for about three hours, from 6am to 9am, or until the broth runs out. Customers lined up on the sidewalk opposite the restaurant, the staff wrote the number on a thin piece of aluminum the size of a matchbox. Diners pay in advance to get the card and sit at the table to wait for service.
The restaurant has two spaces to serve diners. At the place where Mrs. Tam put the counter, there are 5 plastic tables lined up along the path leading to the house. The area of two rooms in the house is about 30 m2, one room uses a fan and the other has air conditioning. The second place is about 5 m from Mrs. Tam’s counter, with an area of 30 m2, serving about 25-30 people at the same time.
Between 6:30 and 8:30, Ms. Tam almost did not rest her hands because of the large number of guests. Standing at the counter with her were two employees, one preparing rice noodles and the other pouring broth. Pho is blanched in a pot of broth until cooked, broken into strands. Mrs. Tam added sliced beef, scallions and chopped coriander and gave it to the staff to fill the broth, then passed it on to the waiter. According to such a process, diners do not have to wait too long, at the most crowded time it is only about 10 minutes.
The menu of the restaurant is the familiar beef noodle soup: rare, ripe, re-encrusted, crispy tendon, wine sauce, ranging from 40,000 to 60,000 VND a bowl.($1=24,000 VND)
The area serving pho customers is about 5 meters from the stall.
Mrs. Tam, the owner is adding ingredients to a bowl of pho.
The space where Ms. Tam places the counter and seats for guests.
The area serving pho customers is about 5 meters from the stall.
Mrs. Tam, the owner is adding ingredients to a bowl of pho.
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Hanoi in autumn, early in the morning it gets cold, a bowl of hot beef noodle soup is the breakfast choice of many people. Like many other pho bowls, Mrs. Tam’s beef noodle soup has a thin layer of blanched, red-pink beef that stands out between the green of onions and coriander on the surface. The bottom is a soft, smooth noodle soup.
According to some diners, the broth at Mrs. Tam’s restaurant is sweet and delicious. Sliced beef is not too thin, when eating, you can feel the toughness and firmness of the new meat. Diners can see the quality of beef when looking to the left side of the stall, where the staff sit and slice each piece of fresh beef.
Ms. Tam said she makes pho soup lighter than some other shops so that diners can easily season it according to their taste. On the dining table are available fish sauce, lemon, garlic vinegar, chili sauce, sliced chili. Beef is selected as the first, fresh, and delicious product, “although the price is expensive and the profit is low, it ensures the quality of food for customers”, she said. However, Ms. Tam did not say how many bowls of pho she sells each morning.
The owner said that in addition to taste, ensuring food safety and hygiene is her top priority. “People find it delicious, but I don’t guarantee that they will also hate it. My pho doesn’t have a special secret, but the steps I follow are as clean as cooking for my family,” she said.
Mr. Dang Van Trong, who lives on Mai Anh Tuan Street, said: “The queue is a bit inconvenient, but it takes a while to get used to it. It’s also fast, it takes only five or ten minutes to get a number, go to the table and sit”. He also agreed that Mrs. Tam’s beef noodle soup does not have a special taste, but the owner cooks it cleanly and the staff is good, so he still comes to the restaurant often.
In addition to regular customers like Mr. Trong, sometimes people see strange queues so they are curious to try but not much, said the staff who recorded the number of tables. The shop does not advertise on social networks, so few tourists know it, mainly guests living and working in the surrounding areas.
Located on a small road along Hoang Cau Lake, the morning traffic is large, so it is quite inconvenient to move to the shop or cross the street. Because it is only open for sale for three hours in the morning, on time when people go to work, the shop is almost always crowded. After taking the table number, diners sit in the correct seating area and pay attention when the staff calls the number.
With the form of queuing for numbers, paying in advance, Mrs. Tam’s pho restaurant feels like a shop in the subsidy period. Perhaps that’s why the restaurant attracts many middle-aged customers who come to eat pho as a way of nostalgia for the country’s difficult times.
Photo: Internet (Vinlove.net)