English 
My First Bowl of Pho: Friendship, Vietnamese Culture, and the Real Orlando
It started out simple enough.
I wanted to include my friend Nhu in an upcoming “Pulp City: Eats” segment about Vietnamese culture in Orlando. Not in some surface-level way, but in a way that reflected how deep that influence runs in this city. She came over one afternoon, we sat, talked, and I pitched her the idea.
“I’ve heard it said that if there is one cuisine that Orlando offers that it could absolutely hang its hat on, it would be Vietnamese. I’d love for you to help me tell that story.”
She lit up immediately, genuinely excited that her culture and community would be part of the way we reintroduce Orlando to itself.
Somewhere in that conversation, I mentioned I had never had pho.
She stared at me, not judgingly but shocked, then laughed and said, with that tone that means this is happening right now:
“Oh… we’re changing that.”
And that was it.
No planning.
No production mindset.
Just two friends leaving the house and heading straight to Vinh’s.
Our friendship goes back at least twenty years. We’re both Wall Street kids, Orlando’s version of it, the stretch lined with Yab Yum, KitKat Club, and Go Lounge. Back then it wasn’t nightlife so much as a collision of every misfit scene in the city.
Rockabilly next to hip-hop.
Beatnik next to punk.
Coffeehouse kids mixing with raw rock and roll, old-school rockers, the hippies, the weirdos, the ones who never really fit anywhere else.
All of us were part of something that felt accidental and inevitable at the same time.
That’s the community we came out of, a hodgepodge that somehow became a family. Twenty-plus years later, it’s still part of who we are.
The moment we walked into Vinh’s, the aromas hit me, warm in a way that felt partly familiar, partly exotic. It wasn’t overpowering. It didn’t announce itself. It just settled around you, almost like the room was saying, “Welcome.”
There was something comforting in it, something that felt like it had been simmering all day, long before we arrived. And even though I had never had pho before, there was a strange sense of recognition in that scent, like a memory I couldn’t quite place but trusted instantly.
It felt honest and simple, like the culture was speaking through the aroma before it ever spoke through the food.
Standing there with Nhu, someone I’ve known for half my life, it hit me. I was stepping into a part of her world I had never actually seen. Not the bars. Not the scenes. Not the decades of misfit nights.
This was something more meaningful, rooted in family, tradition, and history.
It felt intimate in a quiet way, not dramatic, just real.
It was a door opening simply because a friend wanted to share something that mattered.
First, Nhu wanted to introduce me to the things she grew up with, the small plates that open the meal long before the main dish ever hits the table. We ordered egg rolls, Vietnamese spring rolls, and a Vietnamese iced coffee. All firsts for me.
The coffee came out in a tall glass with a spoon, and I remember asking her why. She smiled and explained how it was made, how the layers settle, how you have to stir it so everything comes together.
I took one sip and was sold.
Cold, refreshing, and sweet, heavy in all the right ways, but still letting the coffee speak for itself. It didn’t hide anything. It just balanced it.
Then came the egg roll.
“This is how I eat mine,” she said.
She lifted the lettuce leaf it sat on, tore it clean down the middle, and wrapped the egg roll inside it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Vegetables aren’t just garnish for us.”
She dipped it into the fish sauce, and I followed her lead. I had never eaten an egg roll like that in my life.
The bite was simple but incredibly flavorful, lighter than any version I grew up with. She told me how the cabbage inside soaks up the oil, and how some Vietnamese techniques trace back to French influence. Just small pieces of history, handed across the table without pretense.
It wasn’t just food. It was her showing me how she was raised to eat.
As we looked over the menu, the conversation drifted into her family’s migration, the part of her story I had never heard in this kind of detail. She told me how, in the aftermath of the collapse, seamstresses would sew valuables into the linings of garments so people fleeing Vietnam could make the trek to wherever they were headed.
Many of them ended up in places with climates that felt close enough to home to start over.
She talked about family gatherings after church, about how important those meals were. Not just food, but the glue that kept history, memory, and people together.
Then she mentioned something I never saw coming: her aunt owned a billiards hall my friends and I used to go to. We didn’t know each other then, but she remembered sitting in the back sometimes, watching all the American weirdos pass through, the colored hair, the wild outfits, the scenes folding into each other.
And even though her culture was fully Vietnamese, something about that world resonated with her. She said she always felt like she somehow belonged to it too.
That’s what eventually brought her to Wall Street, to Yab Yum, KitKat, Go Lounge, and straight into the orbit of all of us fabulously weird wanderers.
She pointed to a section of the menu. “This is where you’ll be ordering from.” Then, with a quiet matter-of-factness, she added:
“I’m getting something different. I can get pho at home, from my mom,” then she laughed.
In my section of the menu, there were a lot of soups.
“Soups traveled well,” she said. “And they were filling.”
Food as survival.
Food as mobility.
Food as something you could carry across distance and memory.
I asked what she was thinking of ordering.
“I’m thinking Bun bo Hue,” she said. “Usually it’s seafood and comes with a crab cake, but I’ll do beef.”
Then she added, almost like a promise:
“I’m also asking for a small bowl so I can let you try it. You have to pick your own pho.”
I didn’t.
Not at first.
We went back and forth for a minute until we both landed in the same place. If I was going to have pho for the first time, I might as well go all in.
So I did.
I ordered a large bowl of Xe Lua, the special combo rice noodle soup with medium-rare steak, brisket, flank, tendon, and tripe. If I was going to do this, I wasn’t going to tiptoe into it. I was going all in.
“Most Vietnamese people don’t think I’m Vietnamese at first,” she laughed quietly.
I’d heard her say versions of that before, but this time it landed differently, because just a few seconds later, she placed our entire order in Vietnamese.
And I watched the shift happen in real time.
Our waiter had been very attentive and kind the whole night, but the second he heard her speak, something softened. His posture eased. His face brightened.
A kind of familiarity settled over the table, like an unspoken understanding between two people who shared a cultural language I was only now stepping into.
It took him by surprise.
It took me by surprise.
Not in a dramatic way, just real.
There was something unguarded about seeing her that way.
Not as the friend from Wall Street nights.
Not as the misfit kid who found her tribe among all of us.
But as someone whose history, family, and identity were suddenly visible in a language I couldn’t translate but could feel.
It was a quiet moment.
Powerful.
And it stayed with me long after the food arrived.
The bowl was huge, big enough that it made a statement when it hit the table. Sliced brisket floated in a sea of hot broth and rice noodles, steam rising like it also had something to say.
Our waiter set down a towering plate of mint, bean sprouts, peppers, and culantro between us. She pointed to the herbs and explained the difference, how culantro wasn’t the same as cilantro, how it carried a more lemony sharpness, and how it’s what gives certain bowls their depth.
As she spoke, she tore the leaves into small pieces and let them fall across the top of her Bun bo Hue like she’d done it a thousand times.
Bean sprouts.
Mint.
A squeeze of lime.
All of it layered with a kind of practiced ease that felt almost ceremonial.
She scooped a bit into a small bowl and handed it to me.
“Try mine while yours gets right.”
Then I started building my own.
I followed everything she did: culantro, bean sprouts, mint, lime, and then a streak of Sriracha for good measure. The steak came on a separate plate, thin and bright, and she told me to just slide it all into the bowl and let the broth take care of the rest.
So I did.
I pushed the slices down with my chopsticks, watching them slowly change color as the heat worked its way through. She nodded.
“Now you wait,” she said.
“Try some of mine until then.”
The Bun bo Hue was amazing.
The broth and noodles were hearty and full of flavor, with just the right amount of kick. It was like nothing I’d ever had, but still warm and familiar in a way I couldn’t explain.
She smiled as she watched me eat, and I’m sure delight was all over my face. I took another sip of the coffee, dipped right back in, and then turned to my own bowl.
My very first pho.
With one of my oldest friends.
It was delicious, lighter than Nhu’s, cleaner, and immediately aromatic from the mint and culantro. Beneath that freshness was a deep, slow savoriness, and the steak was now tender and perfectly cooked in the heat from the broth.
It was warm and comforting. But I couldn’t help eyeing Nhu’s Bun bo Hue. That was an absolute revelation.
And in that moment I wondered, “How come we never did this before?”
I couldn’t have had this experience with someone else.
I mean, technically I could have. Anyone can go out and try pho. But it wouldn’t have meant the same thing. Not even close.
Sitting across from Nhu, I felt a different connection. A deeper understanding of her. A deeper respect for her culture.
And a clearer picture of how much Vietnamese culture threads through Orlando itself, not as an addition, but as a foundation.
A living, breathing part of this city’s identity.
It wasn’t just a meal.
It wasn’t just my first bowl of pho.
It was seeing my friend in a way I somehow hadn’t in twenty years, not because the pieces weren’t there, but because this was the first time they were arranged in front of me, warm and honest and unmistakably hers.
Slowly, everything connected.
Her family’s migration.
The church gatherings.
The seamstresses sewing valuables into clothes.
The billiards hall.
Her childhood.
Her history.
The misfit years downtown.
The Wall Street nights.
The way she found belonging in multiple worlds at once.
All of it sat right there between the bowls.
There was no way I was finishing that bowl. I told her how surprised I was, not just that I was full, but that I wasn’t weighed down. Everything I’d eaten still felt light, still speaking to me as we packed up the leftovers.
One container for noodles.
One for broth.
And of course, a to-go cup for my coffee.
Our waiter came back to the table and Nhu spoke to him again in Vietnamese. He laughed, replied in the same familiar tone, and then she motioned toward me.
Switching to English, he said, “No, I didn’t think she was Vietnamese at first. I would have guessed Spanish.”
Nhu smiled at that, because she likes the surprise.
She likes when people realize there’s more beneath the surface, more depth than whatever they assumed.
Most of us Black Sheep do.
We thanked him and walked up front to pay. The owner, who also served as host, greeted us warmly. And again, Nhu spoke in Vietnamese.
It made me feel proud in a way I didn’t expect.
I looked around the restaurant, taking in the foodie awards and the Vietnamese artwork covering the walls. I really liked it here. I felt welcomed.
The owner and Nhu exchanged a few more words, something that felt almost intimate in its familiarity. At one point, the woman motioned gently toward Nhu’s face and smiled.
We thanked her and walked out the door.
“She says she knows my mom,” Nhu said, smiling.
And all I could think was: what a small world.
To be so far away from home, to start over, to build a new life, and still find pieces of your story waiting for you in unexpected places.
Familiarity.
Community.
Connection.
That’s what makes Orlando so special.
It’s that thing you’ll never get to see if you only look at its surface.
That’s what my very first bowl of pho was.
Connection.
