Phở of Hà Nội is usually had as a nosh for breakfast, lunch or dinner, separately from other dishes. In phở of Hà Nội, the most complicated and most important stage is the preparation of bouillon. Whether the dish is good or not usually depends on the bouillon. The bouillon for phở must be simmered with beef shinbone along with some spices. The taste of the bouillon is decided by the spices. The know-how to make bouillon for Phở is private secret of each restaurant and kept confidential. Though, it can be seen that basic spices include of cardamom, ginger, star aniseed, close, eryngo nuts, cinnamon, dry anion, shrimp, etc. and especially, an indispensable part is a beef tail.
Thanks to such typical mixed materials and the processing procedures like know-how that phở of Hà Nội has become famous. When enjoying phở, we always feel the sweetness of beef and bone, the smell of spices and noodle, which is cut up manually for best. The noodle is also a factor making the special feature of phở of Hà Nội.
The famous phở restaurants in Hà Nội are Lý Quốc Sư, Lò Đúc, Hàng Cót, Hàng Đồng, Bát Đàn, Nam Ngư, Lê Văn Hưu, etc. In cold winter days, it is really wonderful to bring a hot and smelly bowl of phở, slowly enjoying the art of ingestion of Hà Nội.