You can spend two dollars on pho in Vietnam. You can also spend a hundred. American vlogger Sonny Side, whose YouTube channel Best Ever Food Review Show counts more than 11 million subscribers, recently ate his way through both ends of the spectrum to find out what each price tag actually buys — and his route doubles as a handy pho-lover's itinerary.
His first stop was Hanoi, pho's birthplace, at a family-run stall on Bat Dan Street that has been ladling out bowls for some 70 years. The Northern style here is all about restraint: a crystal-clear broth with deep beef flavour, notes of charred ginger and scallion, and hand-sliced flat rice noodles topped with rare and well-done beef. Sonny's verdict was that the pure beef essence comes through in every spoonful — no garnish needed to carry it.
From Hanoi he flew south to Ho Chi Minh City, where pho turns louder and sweeter. In a narrow alley off Ho Hao Hon Street in District 1, he tried a Southern-style bowl loaded with flank, tendon and rare beef, finished with nuoc beo — a golden scallion fat that floats on top. The Southern approach also comes with a generous basket of fresh herbs, lime and chilli sauces, so every diner customises their own bowl.
The finale was the $100 bowl (about 2.3 million VND) at Ănăn Saigon, the restaurant run by award-winning chef Peter Franklin. This is pho through a fine-dining lens: seven cuts of beef, including Angus tenderloin, tongue, tendon, shank, flank, short rib and house-made meatballs. The broth simmers for 12 hours, then gets clarified until it's perfectly clear, and arrives topped with shaved black truffle. Sonny called the broth rich and silky enough that the premium ingredients make the price feel justified.
For travellers, the takeaway is that there's no single "correct" pho — Hanoi's austere, beef-forward bowls and Saigon's sweet, herb-strewn versions are genuinely different dishes worth tasting back to back. The street bowls remain one of the world's great cheap eats, while splurges like Ănăn show how far Vietnamese cooking has pushed into modern gastronomy. Either way, a bowl costs a fraction of what the same experience would abroad.
