The thing about pho, or Vietnamese beef noodle soup, is that it is more than a meal: It's a 3-D slurping environment. If you can't hunch over your steaming bowl close enough to Hoover the broth, if you aren't willing to get your face splashed or bits of herb wedged in your teeth, or if you're not willing to forgo conversation with your dining companions until you're finished eating, you're just not going to get very far.

Visit Pho Cali, the new Vietnamese eatery in Chinatown, and you will see this total dedication to pho in action. The din of clinking spoons and chatty children recedes, the wall-size waterfall releasing an apron of foam goes unnoticed. Once the pho arrives, there's really nothing else in the room.

This single-mindedness makes for extreme efficiency. On each table there's a lazy Susan of chopsticks, porcelain spoons and various hot sauces. No need to reach very far. Several different servers are on hand and will mill around until your order is taken. In fact, our food came almost before we ordered it. (My friend Megan wondered if we had been implanted with some kind of bar code that was scanned at the door.)

That's not to say that pho is the only thing worth ordering here. There are salted plum and lemon sodas, fruit ices and an array of tapioca bubble teas for sipping — and chewing. The most seductive drink, though, is traditional Vietnamese coffee. It's the anticipation of watching it drip through an individual aluminum filter, knowing that by the time the condensed milk has been dissolved and the coffee is poured into a glass of ice, there is no resisting it. It goes down like a Frappuccino without the brain freeze.

Pho Cali serves appetizers, but they are not especially timed to arrive before the main course. Shrimp, shredded pork and threads of rice vermicelli are rolled up into steamed rice paper packets (goi cuon) and dusted with ground peanuts. On the side is a dish of dark, pungent peanut sauce. Shrimp on sugarcane is technically a paste of ground shrimp shaped in an oblong ball, which is speared and then grilled until a crust forms around the fluffy center. Then there are the fried spring rolls, small and not greasy, though their meat and vegetable flavors are somewhat muddled. All the while, the nuoc cham — fish sauce brightened with lime sugar and julienned carrot, a staple condiment of Vietnamese cuisine — is flowing.

There are multiple types of bun, or vermicelli and broken rice (com tam). The house special bun combo comes deconstructed into its basic food groups: a filigreed thicket of translucent noodles, slices of spring roll, a fat pink wedge of grilled pork, shrimp on sugarcane, a pile of sprouts. You stir these together, add nuoc cham and enjoy the competing textures, the sweet, sour and spicy flavors.

In the com tam bi cha bu nuong, a downy heap of broken rice is embellished with tiny scallion rings, shredded and slightly gristly pork and razor-thin ribbons of grilled beef. On the side, there is a wedge of pork cake, like a five-spiced pâté, and more nuoc cham to add to the mix.

Pho, usually consumed for breakfast but available all day, is a two-utensil affair, and for unaccustomed hands it takes some practice. (There's no shame, by the way, in securing a prophylactic napkin in your collar.) With chopsticks you snag the long, shivering rice noodles and floating slivers of meat. With the bowllike spoon you capture the star anise-scented broth, herbs and scallions.

Pho Cali has 25 varieties of pho, and most feature some combination of beef products. The servings are giant: The house special in particular is meant to feed two. (At $6.25, that makes an insultingly cheap date.) In its swirl of noodles are feathery pieces of fatty beef brisket, rare steak, flank steak, long white curvy strands of tendon and honeycomb slices of tripe. The tendon and tripe are not essential, of course, unless you're really looking for chowhound cred, but meat pho is almost always more satisfying than, say, shrimp. Alongside the soup is its crowning glory: a plate of mint, basil and cilantro sprigs; cool, crisp bean sprouts; slices of chili pepper and lime wedges for squeezing. It's a needed dose of fresh flavor, an island of salad in a meat stock sea.

Bun bo Hue, or beef vermicelli soup from Hue, is like pho with more attitude. Instead of the clear broth it has a crimson red base that leaves a yellow film on the edges of the bowl. We were warned it would be spicy, and the lemongrass-fish sauce flavor gave way to a progressively hotter bite as we reached the sunken chili paste at the bottom. But in pho territory, you can't stop. You just sniffle and dive in for more.

Pho Cali 1000 Arch St., 215-629-1888 Daily, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.

• Appetizers, $3-$6.50; entrees, $3-$8.50
• Credit cards accepted.