Bo 7 Mon 7 Courses of Beef
Clockwise from top: vinegar beefiness fondue; a platter including meatballs and bo la lot (beef wrapped in betel foliage); and congee. Photo: Aaron Chiliad. Yoshino
Bo bay mon, or seven courses of beef, is non the orgy of beef you might expect. What I love about it: It feels special enough to exist festive, what with the lavish variety, the wrapping of rolls tableside and dipping thin slices of beef into a vinegar fondue, and even so it's surprisingly refreshing and comforting for everyday meals, with the heaps of fresh herbs, lettuce and pickles, and a soothing terminate of congee. The beef is treated more as a condiment, harkening back to when meat was considered a luxury—the bo bay monday tradition dates to 1930 when the eatery Au Pagolac opened in Ho Chi Minh Metropolis, Vietnam.
In Honolulu, where bo bay mon disappeared after A Little Bit of Saigon stopped serving information technology in the 1990s, it made a comeback when Super Pho in Kaimukī opened 19 years ago . (Until recently, when a one-time employee of Super Pho opened Da Best Pho in Marketplace Urban center with a similar carte, it was the only restaurant to serve bo bay mon on the island.)
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Beef congee. Photograph: Aaron K. Yoshino
The seven courses of beef can vary, but they usually highlight various cooking techniques, much similar Japanese kaiseki. At Super Pho, where the bo bay monday is $40 for two, it begins with a beefiness salad, thin rare slices of cooked beef tossed with equally thin slices of lemon, rind and all, a fistful of torn rau ram (Vietnamese coriander), onions, peanuts, fried shallots. And what really makes it a salad y'all can't get plenty of—a sprinkling of sugary pork dust and ethereally fried skin on pinnacle.
Courses ii, three, four and five get in on a big platter overflowing with herbs, including culantro, purple shiso and mint. And so at that place'south lettuce, cucumbers, vermicelli and pickled daikon, which you lot're meant to roll into rounds of rice newspaper with the beef. Or non: I too enjoyed treating the DIY rolls more similar bites of salad while eating the beefiness separately, the better to taste the nuances. Hither, it'south prepared as a steamed meatloaf and various grilled preparations: skewers, meatballs wrapped in tissue-thin caul fatty, and beef wrapped in la lot leaves. The traditional dipping sauce for your rolls is mam nem, a fermented anchovy sauce that Super Pho makes with lemongrass, ginger and fresh pineapple. But if it's as well potent for yous, yous can as well ask for the more than familiar nuoc cham.
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Beef dipped in a vinegar fondue. Photograph: Aaron K. Yoshino
And then, class six, beefiness fondue—a carpaccio of beef arrives, and a Sterno-fueled pot of vinegary broth. And to finish, a warming beef congee.
My friend and I had originally stepped into Super Pho for noodle soup. I had seen bo bay mon on the carte du jour for years, just always said I'd go information technology "side by side time." Finally, this time, we said, if non now, so when? It shook u.s.a. out of our routine and delighted us on an otherwise mundane weekday. And all that for non much more than the price of two bowls of pho.
Angel Le Tran, Super Pho'due south managing director, said bò seven món has been popular e'er since the eatery opened, and the day I talked to him, a couple from Colorado had ordered it—just ii days afterward they arrived in Honolulu, when they also ate it. "People get information technology starting time thing when nosotros open at 10 a.yard. and late night at 9:thirty p.1000. with wine and beer," he says. He remembers eating it when he was a child in Ho Chi Minh Metropolis, and though at one time information technology was reserved for special occasions like weddings, given the cost of beefiness, it has since go one of Vietnam's about beloved foods, in function because "it'southward just really fun."
3538 Wai'alae Ave., (808) 735-9989, superphowaialae.com,@superpho.waialae
Source: https://www.honolulumagazine.com/at-super-pho-in-kaimuki-seven-courses-of-beef-is-a-40-feast-for-two/
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