I never realized how large the Vietnamese population in Melbourne was until my second visit here in 2013, when Chris took me to two different Vietnamese neighborhoods, Springvale and Richmond. It shouldn’t surprise me given Australia’s proximity to Vietnam, but it was more just intriguing to me to think of Vietnamese people speaking English with Aussie accents and living in the land Down Under. This morning, I had a craving for pho, so I asked Chris to take me to have some. We decided to go to Springvale, where we passed by a handful of Vietnamese butcher shops one store at a time. I’ve never seen a Vietnamese-specific butcher shop, nor have I ever seen Vietnamese-only barbecue restaurants and takeout counters for classic dishes like heo quay (Vietnamese roast pork belly). Here, there are pho shops that open at 8am, which I also hadn’t seen before outside of Vietnam. Traditionally in Vietnam, pho is a breakfast dish, and here, people actually do have it for breakfast… and queue up for it!

The original place we wanted to go to have pho had too long of a wait (I have never seen a queue for pho, nor have I ever had to wait for it anywhere), so we settled on a place a block away, which ended up still being quite satisfying with a side of jack fruit shake. These shops serve pho and only pho, and they are bustling. I wish New York had Vietnamese food like this and quality that was as easy to find as this.