Blood Work

Pho is a popular soup made of thin rice noodles in steaming hot beef broth with thinly sliced beef served raw (meant to be dipped into the broth until rare), and also one of my favorite things to eat. This classic dish can be found in just about any Vietnamese restaurant in this city from Charles Phan’s elegant and modern, Slanted Door to Broadway Street's My Canh, which is a bit more sketch and a little less fine dining. My Canh runs circles around Slanted Door, as they have countless variations of this noodle soup dish, including a version made with pig blood. The pig blood version is served in piping hot beef broth with thicker egg noodles. Some cultures have codes against eating blood products, I now understand why. Gelatinous and dark brown in color, the blood comes in the form of a sliced cube. Biting into the cube is like eating some meat-flavored Jello. The savory cubes just fall apart into wiggly little crumbles as you chew them. The ending taste has a slight tinge of that organ meat taste that makes the corners of my mouth turn down into a DISGUSTING frown. Not terrible, but there is no desire to prepare this at home. Fun fact; approximately eight percent of your body weight is blood. 626 Broadway, (415) 397-8888