Pho Dzung

So last night was a lot of fun but I did wake up feeling a just a trifle worse for wear. Even though I lounged around the house for most of the morning, rest was not enough and to properly shake this morning-after malaise only pho would suffice. So off we trotted to Preston.

Pho Dzung is in the Preston end of High Street and is a cheap, unassuming Vietnamese restaurant with a healthy buzz and fast turnover. Like all the best pho shops, this one has a picture of a smiling cow and chicken in the window (which always reminds of me of this).

Pho with rare beef and beef brisket

Not that buzz matters all that much - it's really all about the soup, and their pho ba is wonderful and restorative. The broth is rich, warm and fragrant with cinnamon and star anise; both the braised brisket and the rare beef slices were perfect; the noodles were as they should be; and the herbs and bean shoots were perfect to spark up the soup with both scent and crunch.

As long as the basics are right, the strength of a good pho is in the broth, and the broth here is just what the doctor ordered, or would have if he'd had any sense. He doesn't, of course. But if he did....

Noodle Kingdom

"When beetles
fight these battles
in a bottle
with their paddles
and the bottle's
on a poodle
and the poodle's
eating noodles...

...they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle."

(from Fox in Sox by Dr Seuss)

It is our first foray to the North end of High Street, in Preston, and we do it without a noodle-eating poodle. Although regulars at the Preston Market, we haven't tried any of the increasing number of restaurants nearby in High Street, so Noodle Kingdom is the beginning of something new for us. Oh, the places we'll go....

Noodle Kingdom is a modern, bright and wonderfully chaotic room off a bright and wonderfully chaotic section of The Street Previously Named. Noodles are hand-made by a noodle hand-maker who sits in his noodle-booth near the noodle-window, and my word, they are wonderful (noodles).

Emmy and I ordered well-noodled noodle soups (with noodles) - mine was the Lanzhou beef soup, Em's a wanton wonton soup. W dumpled.

The beef soup was simple and fragrant - a wintry warm, rich and scented broth with sweet aniseed-like spices and firm, poodle-free noodles that were fun that was funny. It was adoringly adorned with slices of beef brisket that were melt-in-the mouth tender and would have been lapped up by any self-respecting lap poodle.

Em's wontons were wantonly wonderful - juicy pork flavoured with ginger; far better than fish-in-a-pot. Both dishes were served in enormous and staggering Horton-sized bowls. The dumplings, pot stickers, were less wonderful but still fine.


Like reading Dr Seuss to a five-year old, Noodle Kingdom is a simple but cheerfully boisterous experience. Getting your tongue around these hand-made poodle-free noodles is easier than reading Fox in Sox and just as rewarding.