Also this issue: Street at the Crossroads -Howard Altman Smugglers' Blues How I became a technology bandit in India. -Helen i-lin Hwang Someplace Special A principal for a day, expecting chaos, discovers a school that works. -David Warner Letters to the Editor

December 19-25, 2002

loose canon

Pho Whatever Ails You

by Bruce Schimmel

With the exception of chicken soup -- or a slug of NyQuil and 20 hours of shut-eye -- there are few true universal cures. I'm here to tell you that I've found another panacea in a pot. It's called pho.

I promise it is good for whatever ails you. (Unless you're a vegetarian, for which there appears neither to be a cure, nor apparently the need for one. But I digress.)

Pho is beef soup flavored with ginger and shallots, spiked with anise, sparkling with fresh cilantro.

Pho's full name is Pho Bo Ha Noi and it hails from Hanoi, the capital of one of last century's evil empires, North Vietnam.

Shops that sell pho and only pho are ubiquitous throughout Vietnam, and are quickly spreading to the States. (There are two pho shops in Philadelphia; see below.) This is fast food that's good for you. Like any other true restorative -- the best being champagne -- pho may be consumed at any time of the day, including breakfast.

Breakfast? Sure! Pho is not a stew. Made right, it is a lucid, caramel-colored broth. Scented with goodies, it will clear your head better than OJ or coffee --- but without that bitchslap of sugar or caffeine. It'll bring you up without letting you down.

Along with ginger, shallots and anise, this clear broth is dressed with wedges of cool lime and flecked with fiery chiles. A tsunami of flavors.

Unlike chicken soup -- which nobody except my mother makes right -- pho is easy. And is as therapeutic to make as it is to eat.

Gently boil a couple pounds of soup bones in water to cover, skimming the surface free of scum and fat.

Peel two handfuls of ginger-root and shallots, stick them on a metal rod and rotate them over a burner until charred. Toss in with several star anise and a stick of cinnamon. Savor the smell.

Bubble gently for two to three hours; keep skimming. Strain. Dump in as much fish sauce as you like, and serve with lime wedges and little red chile rings.

Customize with scallions, bean sprouts, thinly sliced beef, rice noodles, meatballs, chicken, whatever. Administer your cure with a spoon in one hand and chopsticks in the other. You'll feel better soon.

But if you are in need of an immediate fix, visit Pho 75, a chain from D.C. that now has shops on 1122 Washington Ave. (215-271-5866) and on 823 Adams Ave. (215-743-8845). They're open every day except Christmas, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.