This is Niall Mackay, The Podcast Guy. I’m the host of A Vietnam Podcast, where my guest and I share stories and insights related to Vietnam.
This time, we tackled one of my favorite segments—Overrated, Underrated, or Properly Rated. It’s a simple idea: we pick something and debate whether people love it too much, not enough, or just the right amount.
We had done this format before with Đà Lạt and Vietnam Cocktail Bars. Check them out again!
Phở – A dish so iconic that people outside Vietnam think it’s the Vietnamese dish. But is it actually that amazing, or is it just the default answer when people talk about Vietnamese food?
Mischa: Phở is Criminally Underrated
Mischa was the first to jump in, and there was no hesitation—he loved phở. To him, it wasn’t just a dish; it was a lifesaver. He swore by phở gà (the chicken version) when he was feeling sick, comparing it to the way people in Western countries rely on chicken noodle soup. Then there was phở bò, the classic beef version, which he believed was even more popular.
His favorite time to have phở? After a big night out. He was convinced that a steaming bowl of phở bò could wipe away a hangover like magic. Something about the rich broth, tender beef, and slurpable noodles made it the perfect post-drinking meal. But for him, phở wasn’t just for recovery—it was great at any time of the day: breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even a random craving.
He believed phở had once been overrated—probably when it was the go-to Vietnamese dish for foreigners. But then, expats and food snobs pushed back so hard, constantly saying, “There’s way better Vietnamese food than phở!” that it had actually swung in the other direction. Now, in his opinion, phở was underrated because people tried too hard to dismiss it.
Adrie: Phở is Properly Rated
Adrie’s take was a little different. Unlike Mischa, she didn’t grow up eating a lot of phở. In fact, before coming to Vietnam, she hadn’t had much Vietnamese food at all. It wasn’t that she didn’t like it—she just didn’t have many opportunities to try it. Plus, she hadn’t been a big meat eater for most of her life, so she didn’t have the same emotional connection to the dish as others might.
That said, she absolutely enjoyed a good bowl of phở. It was flavorful, comforting, and satisfying. However, what really annoyed her was how wrong people outside Vietnam got it. Whenever visitors came to see us, they’d get excited about eating “authentic” phở—only to describe something completely different from the real thing.
Phở is simple: broth, noodles, meat, fresh herbs, and a few key ingredients. No corn. No broccoli. No random vegetables tossed in for the sake of it. The fact that so many people outside Vietnam had been eating a completely different version of phở made her appreciate the real thing even more.
Because of that, she found herself somewhere in the middle. She almost said it was overrated, but she couldn’t ignore how delicious it was when made properly. So, in the end, she called it properly rated—it deserved the love it got, but no one needed to overcomplicate it.
Ben: Phở is Overrated
Then there was Ben. And this is where things got controversial.
Ben admitted that phở was comforting. He even ate it all the time. But despite that, he still thought it was overrated. To him, it was just beef broth with noodles, and no matter how well it was made, it wasn’t something that should be hyped up as an incredible dish.
He compared it to bánh mì, saying that at the end of the day, it was just a sandwich. He wasn’t impressed by the fact that it had bread, meat, and vegetables—it was still just a sandwich. Likewise, phở was just soup with noodles, and people made way too big a deal out of it.
The real reason he thought it was overrated? Because so many people treated it like the ultimate Vietnamese dish. He’d never had phở before coming to Vietnam, and when he finally tried it, it didn’t blow his mind. It was good, sure, but was it legendary? His answer is no.
My Take: Phở is Overrated (But Still Good)
As for me? I had to agree with Ben—phở was overrated. Now, that didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. I just thought it got way too much attention compared to all the other incredible Vietnamese dishes out there. Whenever people outside Vietnam talked about Vietnamese food, it was always phở. No one ever mentioned bún thịt nướng, cơm tấm, or bánh xèo.
The problem wasn’t that phở wasn’t good. It was that people treated it like the only Vietnamese dish worth talking about. I had so many meals that I’d pick over phở any day, and yet, phở was still the one that got all the spotlight.
But then something funny happened.
One day, I took a friend to a bakery in Saigon, and while we were looking at the menu, talking about phở bò, two steaming bowls of phở appeared in front of us. We hadn’t even ordered yet. The guy running the place must have overheard us and just assumed we wanted it.
So, we shrugged and ate it. And I had to admit—it was amazing. It had been a while since I last had phở, and this bowl reminded me why people loved it so much. The broth was rich, the beef was tender, and it just worked.
Even though I still thought it was overrated in the grand scheme of Vietnamese cuisine, I couldn’t deny that a well-made bowl of phở was something special.
Another Vietnamese Food that I love: “Bánh Bèo” – Most people have NEVER HEARD of this Vietnamese food!
Conclusion
Technically, that meant the overrated vote won—but, as Adrie quickly pointed out, that’s not how consensus works.
Regardless, we all agreed on one thing: whether overrated, underrated, or properly rated, phở is still a damn good bowl of noodles.
Now, what do you think? Is phở as good as people say? Or is it just overhyped soup? Let me know in the comments!
For future ratings, insights and experiences in Vietnam, remember to follow A Vietnam Podcast and become part of our community.
Pho – Overrated, underrated, properly rated? Saigon Sunday Session
[00:00:00]
Introduction and Welcome
Niall: We are gonna do , OVERRATED, UNDERRATED, PROPERLY RATED, The most important thing EVER!! Phở!
Ben: It’s dirty dishwater with noodles.
Mischa: On the way home from a heavy night out, you have a bowl of pho bo, there’s no hangover the next morning.
Niall: Are you laughing because I nearly forgot what I was going to say there?
Adrie: He’s totally sober.
Niall: I’m sotally tober.
Setting the Scene: Saigon Sunday Sessions
Niall: Welcome to another Saigon Sunday Sessions with me, your host, Niall Mackay. I’m with regulars Misha Smith and Adrian Lopez Mackay, who doesn’t like being full named.
And we’re with Biscuit as well. We are in one of my favorite cocktail bars, Manny Cocktails.
Segment Introduction: Underrated, Overrated, Properly Rated
Niall: Uh, it might not be a Sunday, but this is a Saigon Sunday session, and we’re gonna do one of my favorite segments today. So we’re gonna do underrated, overrated. Overrated, underrated, properly rated. That one. I always say it wrong.
And just remember, don’t forget, turn on all the notifications, subscribe, leave a review, share [00:01:00] this with someone else, do whatever you can. to help this podcast grow, and if you want to become part of the Seven Million Bikes community, and if you want to become a BopSaturday, then go to patreon. com forward slash a VNM podcast and become a BopSaturday.
Are you laughing because I nearly forgot what I was going to say there? Maybe, but I’m really excited. So,
Adrie: He’s totally sober.
Niall: I’m sotally tober
Pho: The Great Debate Begins
Niall: are, uh, we’re going to talk about So, so, so important, we are gonna do underrated, overrated, underrated, properly rated, the most important thing ever, Phở Fa? Misha. Yes.
Before we, before we talk about this, if you are listening or watching this as a tourist, I have something really fucking important to tell you. It’s not fo, okay. If I hear one more tourist call it fo, I’m gonna lose my shit. It’s fa, and even then I’m probably saying it wrong, but it’s not fo.
Adrie: Fa. [00:02:00] Fa.
Niall: Fa. Yeah, like that.
Okay.
Pho: Personal Experiences and Opinions
Niall: What are your thoughts on pho?
Mischa: I fucking love a good bowl of pho. Um, some of my favorite times to have a bowl of pho is, uh, pho gà, which is obviously the chicken version. You say
Niall: obviously, but for a lot of people they’re like, that’s no obviously.
Mischa: Well, okay, well it’s obvious to us. And that’s also why I said it.
Um, but yeah, like if I’m, you know, like, when you’re a kid and you’re sick, you have chicken noodle soup, good bowl of pho ga, when you’re, when you’re a little under the weather, fuckin dynamite. Uh, also, pho ba, which is obviously the, the beef version, which I think is a little bit more popular, a little bit more prevalent.
On the way home from a heavy night out, you have a bowl of pho bo there’s no hangover the next morning. All that broth and beef and noodles, fuckin awesome. Um, and also, anytime. Breakfast. Lunch, dinner, I’m, I think I’m tipping my hand here a little bit as to [00:03:00] what my, uh, my rating’s gonna be out of the three options.
Um, but yeah, just to, sort of, to cut you guys off before the pass, I think it was at one point overrated, and there was such a strong backlash by expats, by foreigners, Uh, we’re like, oh, that’s just basic bitch Vietnamese. There’s so much better Vietnamese food, bleh. It’s become so, uh, disdained for being overrated that it’s now underrated by most people because it’s amazing.
fucking It’s fucking amazing. We don’t need to do the puns.
Puns are the lowest form of humor. I know a lot of your audience is probably, uh, from the UK, where people love puns. I fucking hate puns. Anyway! Puns wildly overrated. I fucking love puns! Okay! You are so funny. I do love
Adrie: it too. I
Mischa: do [00:04:00] love puns. Alright, let’s stay on topic here.
Adrie: I
Mischa: think, I think there’s been some It’s such a backlash against pho by people who live here, who like want to make a point about which Vietnamese food they like better, that it’s now criminally underrated.
Niall: Interesting.
Mischa: I’m happy to
Niall: cede the floor to you guys.
Pho: Cultural and Culinary Insights
Niall: So, it’s interesting, one of the things you said though, about breakfast and lunch. I’ve talked about this before. One of the things I love about Vietnamese food is it doesn’t have a delineation, like in Canada, UK, America, you would never have cereal for dinner.
You would very rarely have eggs for dinner. It’d be pretty, well, yeah, but it’d be pretty weird if you were like, let’s have an egg omelet or like scrambled eggs for dinner. Even lunch, lunch is a sandwich. Dinner is up. whatever a dinner is. Whereas even this morning, I had baka for breakfast. Yeah. Which is beef stew, which I think is just the [00:05:00] best thing in the world.
I messaged my sister in Australia and I was like, I just had beef stew for breakfast. It’s so weird. And like you say as well, like pho can be had for breakfast. People wouldn’t blink an
Mischa: eye. It can be half a lunch. I know there’s a lot of good, like, local, like, not called local, obviously, but like, good, small, uh, photo stands that are only open for breakfast.
Yeah. Like, it’s breakfast food. Yeah. Like, they, they serve it through, like, maybe till, like, 11 a. m., and then they shut down. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well. And also, yeah, you can have it, yeah, you can have it anytime.
Niall: And on the ladies day. 3 a. m. On the ladies day. Last episode I posted, somebody commented something that I didn’t know and they were like, Pha used to be, what was it they said, it used to be a breakfast food in the north, it was a hot soup for breakfast, and now it’s, it’s now nationwide, it’s not just Vietnam, it was a breakfast food in the north.
And now nationwide is breakfast, lunch or dinner. [00:06:00] So, as you mentioned, there’s ph gà, which is chicken ph, ph bò, and very rarely ph chy, which is vegetarian ph. What are your thoughts on ph?
Adrie: I really like ph. I don’t think it’s like massively overrated. I maybe am a little bit different.
Niall: We got Ben that’s joining us for this deep dive discussion. Adri is sharing her opinion on Pharr right now.
Adrie: I’m a little bit different from Maybe a lot of Americans who I’ve encountered recently are, like in the recent times of a life, I didn’t eat a lot of F before I came to the, uh, before I came to Vietnam.
So I knew Vietnamese food was a thing. I knew f was a thing, but I just didn’t have much F before I actually came to Vietnam. Also, I wasn’t much of a meat eater. However, I think pho is really delicious. I was gonna [00:07:00] say it’s overrated, but I think it might be properly rated because it is still delicious here.
And one of the things, when we have people visit us, Either we know them or we don’t or we’ve met people and they’re like, Oh, I came to Vietnam and I’m so excited about the pho. The pho in America. Oh, the pho as they normally do. Yeah, the pho in America is so good. It has all these vegetables in it and it has so many different things in it.
I’m like, what the fuck kind of pho are you eating? Pho has noodles and it has meat and it has herbs and it has spices and it has broth that has been cooking for two to three days. And that is it. It does not have. It does not have beans, and it does not have like, Oh, bean sprouts. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, bean sprouts.
People are like, oh, it has corn, it has tomatoes, and it has like, Oh, fuck off. edamame, and all this weird ass shit. Broccoli, and like, I’m like, no, no, no. No, no, no. That ain’t pho, Sally. [00:08:00] No, no, no. So, I think if you have proper fucking pho, Fucking It is properly, Rated. It is delicious. It is good for what it is.
I don’t think it’s overrated. I don’t think it’s underrated. I think it’s perfect.
Niall: But talking about how if it has sweet corn in it or corn. So my sister lives in Australia and she messaged me this a few years ago and she’s like, I’m going to a proper Vietnamese restaurant tonight. It’s in downtown Melbourne, Midtown.
Mid, what do we call it, CBA Melbourne. She’s like, I’m going to this authentic Vietnamese restaurant. I was like, okay, cool, send me the menu. And it had, uh, had Thai on the menu. Thai green curry. Chinese vegetables. And I was like, Lindsay, this is, this is so far from authentic
Mischa: Vietnamese food. Right, so the first time I was back in Toronto, after I’d moved here to Vietnam, my mom and dad were so excited to take me to this pho place.
It’s right behind their apartment. It’s a great [00:09:00] faux place that they found. I’m like, Ehhhhh I was a little skeptical. Showed up, the menu was a mixture of Korean, Vietnamese and Thai dishes. And, uh, the people running the place were Korean. And I could tell that because they were speaking Korean. I lived in Korea before I lived here.
So I heard what they were saying, I didn’t understand everything, but I got that they were speaking Korean. I said something to them in Korean, they looked at me like I was a fucking alien, even though, like, you know, my Korean wasn’t great. But it was good enough that I could, you know, hold up my end of the conversation, but they just, they didn’t understand it coming out of a white person’s mouth in Toronto.
I was like, I don’t fucking know this guy. Weirdo. Anyway, uh, yeah, so I did not get the pho there, it was, you know, it was a Korean joint with, like, Vietnamese and Thai options. Um, But yeah, I was a little, uh, it, it broke my heart a little bit to have to tell my mom that this was not a traditional Vietnamese restaurant that we were in.
Niall: Anyway,
Mischa: got it.
Pho: Final Thoughts and Ratings
Niall: Alright, Ben, you just joined us. [00:10:00] Far, underrated, overrated, properly rated. What do you think? Wait, wait, wait till Andrew
Ben: finishes coughing.
Adrie: I’m fine.
Ben: I think most people like pho. I mean, it’s difficult to not like pho when you get here. So hadn’t really appreciated pho.
However, I still think it’s overrated. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s dirty dishwater with noodles.
Yet it’s comforting. Yet it’s comforting. It’s beefy broth with noodles. I mean, I think it’s really hard to make it more impressive than that, um, I’d say the same for Banh Mi, I mean we could talk about overrated, underrated, but Banh Mi is a sandwich that the Brits have, uh, have mastered for many, many years.
It’s bread, with meat, and vegetables, ooooh, lettuce and stuff. Controversially, uh, I think Had you ever had [00:11:00] pho before you came to Vietnam? Actually, no.
Niall: No. No. No. And is it something, like, iconic? Like, you remember having your first pho here?
Ben: So, the, the thing that, so I eat pho a lot, so this is why You do eat it a lot!
Yeah, yeah, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not saying, like, I don’t eat it, I’m just saying it, I think it’s Iconic, I think makes it overrated. I think, um, for me, I eat fur 24, which, uh That’s why you
Mischa: think
Ben: it’s overrated, you eat shitty fur. Hang on, I’ve had the more expensive fur, and I see little difference. Can we just Can you please explain what is F.
A. R. T. 24? Or
Niall: the more expensive F. A. R. T. Or the more expensive F. A.
Ben: R. T. So the way I see F. A. R. T. 24 is the, is the mass chain. You know, they have like the It’s the McDonald’s of F. A. R. T. Yeah, exactly. And then I guess the do that job? I think the, uh, the premium F. A. R. T. [00:12:00] is you go to like the Michelin and, uh, Is it, what’s it called, Anam or, uh Anam.
Yeah. And they use better beef. Which is, which is great, but it’s still, it’s still beef broth with noodles and, and nice beef. So, uh, for me, like, I think overrated. Overrated.
Niall: So, final opinion, I think pho is overrated,
Mischa: this whole conversation that you three are having is proving what I said, is that it’s, it’s being considered overrated by so many people that it’s now become criminally underrated. Flo is fucking amazing. You guys are fucking nuts. This guy just said that British sandwiches are better than Vietnamese sandwiches.
Should be fuckin put in jail. I, I, I made my point. I made my point at the beginning of the video, and I think it stands, and you guys can say whatever you want. So, so I think you do make a good point. In the immortal words of the poet warrior T. Swift, Player’s gonna play, play, play, play, play, and hater’s gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.
But us followers, we’re [00:13:00] just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake it off. Shake it off.
Niall: I do, I do agree with a lot of what you’re saying. I do think it is overrated because, there’s things like, have you guys seen the King of Queens? There’s like Kevin James, where he has like a sip of it. It’s so, I hate that one.
He’s like, this is fucking amazing. And you’re like, dude, it’s just soup. Like you said, it’s like dirty water. It’s just soup. That’s so crazy, Hunting. That it’s dirty dish water? Like that’s fucking stupid. But I don’t disagree so much. It doesn’t mean it tastes bad though, because the best Far is the one that is the dirtiest dishwater.
So
Mischa: I just, just last week I was gonna, my bank, uh, it was lunchtime, so it was closed. So I was wandering down the street. You are the bank? Yeah. Whoa. So, and there was, I saw like Michelin Select, it was like this little fo shop. They were fucking packed, obviously, from this thing. Yeah. So the service was a little frantic.
They didn’t have enough people on the place, packs the tickets. It’s full. And I got the Pho Dak Viet, which is like four different kinds of meat, four different kinds of beef. And it was fucking [00:14:00] great. So how can it be overrated if it’s amazing?
Niall: I’ll finish my opinion. My opinion is I think it’s overrated because people think it’s just amazing.
Obviously I’ve been here for so long. There’s so many foods I just love. Bun Thit Nung is one of my favourites. Just because there’s other good
Mischa: Vietnamese food doesn’t mean that Pho is less good.
Niall: There is amazing other good food than me. But, recently, one of the funniest things happened. Did you say content?
Can you just wait and stop
Mischa: talking, man? I’m fired up!
Niall: Sorry, go ahead. One of the funniest things that happened recently is that I took, I took a friend, which you can see the video, I took a friend to Newland Bakery on Ham Ney, which is one of the first places I’d ever been to, and we were just looking at the menu and we were both like oh, fa, ba, oh, like we were looking at all the things.
We didn’t order anything and then out of nowhere two bowls of pho bar just landed in front of us and we both looked each other [00:15:00] like We we didn’t order this
Adrie: But the
Niall: guy obviously held us like talking about it. So we’re like, oh fuck it We’ll just have it and i’m not gonna lie. It was the first time pho in so long, it was amazing, it was so delicious.
So it’s something I don’t order often, so I do think it is overrated because people think of Vietnamese food and they just think of pho. Nobody thinks of it. Like overseas, no one’s like, oh, I want some cum tam or I want some bún tht nưng. But they don’t know. But when I did have this pho recently, I was like, okay, shit, it’s pretty fucking good.
Mischa: Comptime is crazy overrated, it’s fuckin pork and rice. Ha
Adrie: ha ha, wrong episode.
Mischa: Alright, so, fa, criminally underrated. Fa?
Adrie: Uh I have to go in the middle, properly rated.
Niall: Properly rated?
Adrie: Yeah, cause I think it’s massively overrated, but Also, sometimes,
[00:16:00] Freebie!
Ben: Ben? Very comforting, often tasty, overrated. Yeah.
Niall: Yeah.
Ben: And now
Niall: go, I think pho is overrated, so. I think by consensus we say pho is overrated, but. It’s
Adrie: not the consensus. Overrated?
Niall: Overrated. Overrated. Do you know what? That’s not what the word
Adrie: consensus means.
Niall: Probably rated. Underrated. So two people said overrated.
That’s not what consensus means. In the words of Donald Trump, this was a massive consensus.
We won by millions of votes.
Absolute landslide. Tha is criminally overrated. And if you disagree, If you disagree, I will take you to court, and I will have a showdown with you. Uh, thank you very much Donald Trump for being able to just [00:17:00] basically make anything we want it to be.
Conclusion and Farewell
Niall: If you disagree, tell us in the comments, tell Biscuit what you think.
Thank you very much for Ben, for turning in the last minute. Thank you for Misha, Adri, as always, remember, follow, subscribe, turn on notifications, and go to patreon. com forward slash vnampodcast, become what?
Mischa: POPSTAR LADY!
Niall: Bob’s Howdy! Support the podcast, you’ll get episodes early. And thank you very much.
Cheers!