Thu The

You'll never eat pho anywhere else again

Footscray may have suffered from the reputation of being a rather shady suburb, and hey I should know - I used to work there. It does, however, boast some excellent food, and Thu The is an absolute diamond in the rough. A most non-prepossessing place, looking like just another Vietnamese noodle shop with the usual plastic tables, pictures of cows and chickens, dried flower arrangements, and the requisite TV on the wall blasting Vietnamese k-ok. There's no menu - or rather, no English menu, but there is a good English description of the dishes available pasted on the front entrance - best to check that on your way in. No spring rolls, no rice paper rolls, no broken rice - this place just specialises in rice noodles, served with either a chicken broth or Pho (beef stock).

The pho here is out of this world. Real aromatic broth, bursting with flavour and intensity, cloudy with the end product of simmering beef bones and herbs for thirty days - ok maybe just for hours. The noodles are soft velvety strips of heaven. The chicken broth is equally divine, and you get excellent quality shredded chicken here, not the scraps that you are often served at other noodle joints.

The only problem is, eat at Thu The once and you will never deign to have Pho anywhere else again - which makes you sound like a right food snob - or is that Pho snob?