Pho Que Huong
Pho Que Huong
Pho Que Huong translates to “your hometown noodle” and it has become one of Homewood’s favorites. Her main ingredients include basic salt, pepper and sometimes a sprinkle of lemongrass.
For the last 14 years Bich Tran has half of the team behind Pho Que Huong. She opened the Vietnamese restaurant with her husband 14 years ago and now, five years after he has passed, it’s her son who stirs the broth.
“We never knew anything but cooking,” Tran said of her and her husband when they purchased the restaurant from a friend in 1998.
Pho Que Huong, which means “your hometown noodle,” has become a Homewood favorite. Tran believes she has made her restaurant’s noodle soup one of the most sought-after dishes in the area.
“You don’t get that at a Chinese restaurant or any other restaurant expect at a Vietnamese restaurant,” Tran said.
Popular dishes like the rice noodle soups Pho Tai and Pho Ga are complemented with meats like eye-round steak, beef brisket and slices of chicken.
“I have a good memory,” Tran said. “I always remember what the customer likes.”
If neither of those soups suits your palate, the menu boasts more than 50 options and an array of Vietnamese beverages.
“Our food is pretty healthy,” Tran said. “American food has a lot butter and cheese, we don’t have that.”
These days it’s her eldest son Eric Le who is the master behind most of those dishes. Tran works the front, and Le leads the kitchen now, a place where he is no stranger.
“After school, at 12 years old, I would bring him up here and he would help me out,” Tran said.
The restaurant’s tables are simply decorated with red pepper jelly, and black and white checkered floors guide the eye toward the walls bearing five different frames that tell Tran’s story.
At age 18, she met her husband when the two were on the same boat leaving a Vietnam after the Communism.
After arriving in America in 1979, Tran, along with her 11 other siblings, moved to Minnesota where the family became a spectacle. If you ask, she’ll show you the family portrait on the front page of the local Minnesota newspaper.
She lived there until July 1983 when she moved to Alabama to marry her husband.
Since opening Pho Que Huong, the restaurant has gained business traction and developed relationships with customers. Tran can’t update her menu now, she said, because many customers know a dish of choice by the number.
“We’re lucky we have very good customers,” Tran said. “They’re very loyal. They keep coming back. Even if they’ve moved, they still come back.”
