Vietnamese pho high on list of world’s best cheap eats

U.K.-based travel site Rough Guides has named Vietnam’s iconic noodle soup, pho, among the world’s 15 best foods that are easy on a globetrotter’s pocket.

Pho, which came in sixth on the list, is a bowl of flat, soft rice noodles dipped in a fragrant beef or chicken broth flavored with different condiments. It is served with beef or chicken, shallots and chili and lemon to taste.

“The warming broth is eaten at any time of day, and is best bought from a hole-in-the-wall vendor, where it probably costs less than the raw ingredients back home,” Rough Guides informed its readers.

The soup originated from Hanoi before it was brought to the south, where people have added their own influences to the dish.

Pho has been getting rave reviews from all quarters for decades now, and no visitor to Vietnam fails to mention the dish. Last year, Lonely Planet editors recommended it as one of the best hangover cures on the road.

International broadcaster CNN also included pho in the list of 50 tastiest dishes on earth after polling its Facebook readers last year.

In 2016, the U.S. news site Business Insider included having bowl of hot pho in Hanoi in the list of 50 greatest travel experiences not to be missed in Asia.

The list of 15 best cheap eats that the U.K. travel magazine just published this month puts Japan’s kaiten-zushi (literally meaning ‘rotation sushi’) at the top, followed by Indonesia’s popular stir-fried rice called nasi goreng and South African fast food dish “bunny chow”, a hollowed-out bread filled with curry.

Fish and chips, one of the best-value meals in England, and the Thali, an Indian meal made up of a selection of various dishes served on a platter made up the top five dishes on the list.