First day at Pho House...

I learned how to fabricate shrimp for their fresh spring rolls. The shrimp is poached in water, cooled, peeled, deveined and sliced in half. I asked him about coconut milk to flavor the shrimp and he said, just plain water. Coconut milk is a "Thai" thing and it is high in cholesterol, not healthy for you.

Got to watch how to make their beef broth. 50 lbs of frozen blanched and cleaned beef knuckle bones, Chef Kevin has the knuckle bones in white mesh like laundry bags so it makes removing them from the large stock pot quick and easy clean up. The bones are put in to the pot and filled with cold water and brought up to a boil. The nasty looking scum is skimmed off and the bones are set to a slow simmer. There really is no written recipe for making his delicious broth, he said it is all in his head. Every restaurant/family has their own recipe for making this soup. He said the competition of all the small 'Pho' noodle places around him, make him guard his recipe. Found a great blog that explains in detail on how to make it, Chef Kevin said it is similar to his recipe except that he does not add fish sauce to his broth because 'some people might be allergic to the fish sauce'. Fish sauce is made from fermented fish and possibly shellfish which can be an allergen to some people. He said the best bones to use is oxtail but that is expensive and very fatty. The broth is simmered for 3 hours and then cooled down in the refrigerator overnight so the layer of fat will rise and be removed the next day before being cooked back up to a steamy boil to be ladled over noodles.

With the economy being so slow, he is pretty much a one man show, he has 2 full time employees working for him, an older grandmother in the back kitchen and a student waiting on tables in the front. The grandmother is pretty quick, she showed me a few tricks in slicing and cleaning shrimp and she operates that deli slicer like a pro. The deli slicer is used for slicing everything from frozen meat, paper thin carrots to one big bunch of green onions all tied up together, like the size of 2 Kleenex tissue boxes.