Not the shy and retiring type, Nguyen Than Huyen has a raspy voice, an easy laugh and a big heart for the customers of her popular pho eatery near the Chau Long market. She has been running her business, together with her husband, for the last decade.

Huyen operates out of what can best be described as a garage: a corrugated-iron roof covering the narrow gap between two buildings. Along the right-hand wall is a coal-fired cooktop for her large stockpot and a smaller one to boil water. Facing the street, a cart serves as the preparation area. Most of the bench space is taken up with bowls of lean chicken, pho noodles, red Asian shallots and limes. Behind the cooking station is a straight row of laminated tables, each set up with a neat tray containing chilli sauce, napkins, cutlery and chopsticks.

Huyen has been making chicken noodle soup, pho ga, since she joined her mother’s business at the age of fifteen. Unemployed in the aftermath of the American War, her mother, Doan, decided to open up a soup stall. As with most good street food operations, the foundation of the business was a secret family recipe.

Setting up a food stall thirty years ago, in the days of food shortages and ration cards, was a gamble. However, Doan was a shrewd businesswoman, and located her stall in Lo Duc Street close to the now-defunct Nguyen Cao market. Not only were the ingredients easier to come by, market sellers and shoppers served as a ready-made customer base. Selling the soup at only 700 dong a bowl, the shop quickly became a success, even during those lean times. While prices have risen over the last three decades to a comparatively princely sum of 30,000 dong (one dollar and 80 cents), customers continue to flock to Huyen’s stall to savour the taste of the Nguyen family’s pho ga.

Although the youngest of three children, Huyen was the first to take up her mother’s trade. Not only is Huyen running her own pho stall, but, like her mother, she has located her soup stall close to a market. Her older sister and brother have since followed suit, opening their own pho outlets.

The days of a soup stall proprietor are long. Huyen fires up the cooking station well before dawn. She has prepared the stock the previous afternoon so that it can sit overnight and its full flavour can unfold. Now it needs to simmer for another two hours before the breakfast crowd arrives. Most of the 250–300 bowls Huyen sells every day are eaten before midmorning. When the stall closes in the afternoon, she prepares the stock for the next day.

Asked about the secrets of a good pho ga, Huyen is understandably coy. She doesn’t want to reveal too many details of her recipe, but says that the broth must simmer for at least five hours, and that it needs to be constantly checked: the heat needs to be adjusted, scum rising to the surface needs to be skimmed off immediately, and the seasoning needs to be fine tuned. At Pho Huyen, all that hard work pays off for the happy patrons who enjoy a clean, flavoursome broth – not too watery, not too strong, not too fatty and not too lean – with soft noodles, topped with moist and tender chicken pieces.