For our Wagyu Beef Pho we use Wagyu beef from the Sher family in Ballan, a small town northwest of Melbourne.
Wagyu is a super premium quality breed of cattle originally from Japan, prized for its intra-muscular fat marbling, giving succulent, tender and tasty meat.
The key beef component for the recipe is brisket, though we also include Wagyu tail and sirloin. The brisket is a highly prized cut and is supplied exclusively to Dandelion in Australia, the remainder being exported to Japan.
Pho varies dramatically from the North of Vietnam to the South, just as it does in Vietnamese diaspora, in places like Melbourne, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Paris. In fact every family and every street vendor has a unique understanding what Pho should taste like and what it should be garnished with and how it should be eaten.
As Didier Corlou, the former head chef at Hanoi’s Metropole Hotel says: ”pho is one of the world’s best soups."