It’s my first trip to Boston and I’m so pumped, though I may not be getting the full Boston Tourist experience.. Even though I’ve lived in Rochester my whole life, my family hasn’t taken a trip to Boston since before I was born. My Aunt and Uncle met in Boston and lived there for the first 6 years of my cousins life with my Aunt’s cousins living nearby. Of course, I’m six years younger than said cousin and when they moved away to Florida, my parents didn’t find much reason to visit Boston again so I’d never been. Lucky for me, my Aunt and Uncle have been visiting their old home recently and I asked if I could meet them over there since I’m about a 5-6 hour drive away. They loved the idea, and thus our adventure began. Slightly unfortunate for me, family trips like this tend to exclude touristy restaurants and instead include lots of local Vietnamese food. I do enjoy Vietnamese food though so at least I get to spend some time with my Aunt and Uncle in this new city and hear stories of when they first met and started a family.
As expected the first few days were spent in the surrounding suburbs and neighborhoods of Boston that include the Vietnamese communities so we had some pretty good food and made ourselves at home.
LOCATION: 409 Hancock St. Quincy, MA 02171
I don’t know if my Aunt and Uncle used to come here a long time ago or if this find is from their recent trips but we stopped by for dinner at Pho Linh and my uncle and I had to take a picture to send to the cousins in Germany. The joke is my Uncle’s name is Linh so it’s clearly his restaurant and therefore the only reason we ate here.
Pho Linh is pretty standard with their menu and has all the traditional Vietnamese dishes that every staple restaurant has. I order my favorite Bún Thịt Nướng Chả Giò which is vermiceli rice noodles with pork and an egg roll. This bowl also comes with a bunch of veggies and is supposed to be topped with fish sauce but I’m not a fan of fish sauce so I go ‘dry’. This is a huge disappointment to any Vietnamese person because fish sauce is life but I guess I’m a little to American to appreciate it. I find that they seasoning from the meat and the oils in it coat the noodles and veggies perfectly every time so I don’t feel like I’m missing out on too much.
This is one of my favorite dishes because theres such a great balance of vegetables and meat and a great crunch from the eggrolls then the softness of the noddles to soak up all the great juices from everything. Of course Pho is a staple dish but sometimes it’s too hot or heavy for Pho, in which case a lighter fresher Bún Thịt Nướng is the way to go. When we eat this way we tend to order individual dishes instead of doing the meal family style but my Aunt gets a little munch-y while we wait for our main dishes so she likes to order apps to hold us all over while we wait. During this particular meal she ordered a couple plates of spring rolls and eggrolls which were also very good but standard.
The other thing that makes my eating habits a slight disappointment is that I’m not a big meat eater. I like to say that I get “meat full” because I still have room in my stomach to eat carbs of veggies but if it’s meat, I’m done. The reason that’s bad is because compared to veggies and carbs, meat is expensive and when you’re poor like they were growing up in Vietnam, you don’t waste the expensive stuff because there’s less of it. So it’s a shocker when I’m voluntarily giving up meat in order to fill up on the cheap ingredients but what can I do? My stomach cannot be satisfied! That’s why it’s pretty common for me to be sneaking meat from my plate onto other people’s plates like I am here with my uncle. Someone will eat it, as long as that someone isn’t me!
