The rain, or more accurately the showers, had been coming down off and on starting with our visit to the Washington Park Japanese Garden. There wasn’t going to be anymore walking around outside today. Before checking into our hotel in Jantzen Beach, we headed over to a popular Vietnamese restaurant in the northeast part of Portland, in the wedge between the Willamette and Columbia Rivers and located along a part of Sandy Boulevard that at one time was called Saigon Boulevard for all the Vietnamese businesses along here.
Our anticipation started to build when we were presented with the extensive menu, including many uncommon items alongside standard ones such as pho and bun. Curiously, the condiments tray on every table included chiles that I normally associate with Thai restaurants. I wondered whether these are common on the Vietnamese table.
Rather than ordering pho, which many people regard as one of Pho An’s specialties, today we ordered Banh Mi Bo Kho (Beef stew with French bread) and Bun Rieu (rice noodle soup with tomaotes and crab). The banh mi terminology might be confused with a kind of Vietnamese sandwich, but in fact it more correctly refers to French bread. Technically speaking, then, it is called a banh mi sandwich.
In many Asian countries, it is common to serve cuts of meat that a Westerner might not appreciate. While an American might expect most of the fat and other “inedible” parts to be removed prior to cooking, it is not all that unusual for Asians to consume, even relish more than just the muscle for the flavor and texture that these parts provide. The beef stew, for example, came with big chunks of beef with noticeable amounts of fat and tendon still attached, which was not entirely to my liking, my wife even less so. The loaf of French bread, while it looked lightly toasted, was extraordinarily chewy, difficult to pull apart, as if it had been microwaved. We’ve had better Vietnamese beef stew broth, too. While it was flavorful enough, it was thinner than many we’ve enjoyed and was full of pieces of star anise and sections of fibrous lemongrass, which had to be fished out before finishing the broth.
Bun rieu was more successful, though it took some getting used to. An impressive amount of fresh condiments, more than enough for two people, came on a plate, which included mint and perilla leaves, bean sprouts, jalapeños, and finely shredded cabbage and banana blossoms. The broth of the rice vermicelli noodle soup, which I first tasted at a friend’s house several years ago, is made from tomatoes and crab paste, which gives it a strongly briny taste, not unlike a stock of boiled shrimp shells. There were also rectangles of fried tofu and a single crab cake made with eggs, dried shrimp and crab paste. The soup also included two triangles of congealed pork blood and, on the side, a small plastic tub of malodorous shrimp paste, in case I wanted more authenticity (I didn’t). This was a good soup, after I adjusted my taste buds to its intense flavor.
Pho An Sandy
6236 NE Sandy Blvd
Portland, OR
503.281.2990
zoomeboshi 
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