I'm home for the time being, but I'm afraid my tongue is still in the freezer.  My plan is to thaw it this weekend and proceed with it early next week.  Just wanted to say a quick THANK YOU to Ryan Adams at www.nosetotailathome.com for being so supportive of this site.  Ryan also does the weekly post 'Offal of the Week' for www.eatmedaily.com which I think is super neat.  Both really wicked websites, I suggest a look.

Since I've been home I have not really had time to grocery shop, but I did go out and spoil myself with a nice big bowl of pho earlier today so I thought I'd share some thoughts about that.  Pho is pretty much the national food of Vietnam, it's wonderfully beefy and noodly by itself but it's normally served with a plate of accompaniments like bean sprouts and fresh herbs that make the soup hearty and yet still fresh.

The restaurant I go to serves a 'special pho' which includes raw eye of round (the hot broth cooks the meat), brisket, tripe and tendon.  The tendon in this soup is amazing; I have no idea how to cook tendon, but this soup may inspire me to learn.

Ethnic restaurants and groceries of various kinds are a great place to go in search of new and different foods, and they can be especially good for those of us who like offal, and other lesser used parts of the animal.  In fact my favorite Mexican restaurant down the street offers tongue taco's (which may be part of the inspiration for my tongue adventure) and tripe soup on the weekend.

Anyhow, what's a blog post without visuals, so here's my lunch complete with side dish of bean sprouts, Thai basil and lime wedges.  These accompaniments can change depending on what part of Asia you are in.  Noodle soups like pho are common all over Asia.  In fact the best I had when I was there was in Laos.  Here's the post about some of the soups I had when I was in Asia last year.