Tank Noodle (Uptown)

Tank Noodle

I am not an adventurous eater by any means. I will always try new food but I don't usually seek out the fine dining/foodie-type business. When I am about to try something new I smell it first, get a real good whiff, then timidly stick my tongue on it, take a super tiny bite, chew with my mouth wide open for some reason, and look upward as if something from the sky is going to give me an answer to how I feel about this particular food. If the food is especially delicious, I close my eyes and make weird moaning noises that probably last a little too long.

Don't mind the dude blowing his nose.

That is why pho (pronounced 'fuh') was quite the adventure for me. Tank Noodle, located at 4953 N. Broadway Ave. in Uptown's predominantly Vietnamese area, has a menu the size of a children's book. It's dense. My friend John and I ordered for pick-up so we didn't have the dine-in experience. We only waited under ten minutes for our Phở tái, chín, gân, sách, AKA beef noodles soup with sliced beef, well done brisket, soft tendon, bible tripe.

You are given separate packages of ingredients:
1 tub of beef broth with other yummy smelling smells in it
1 takeout box filled with rice noodles, two kinds of meat (one of which is raw, one of which is gelatinous and kind of clear), other noodle stuff
1 plastic baggy with basil, mint, lime, bean sprouts, sriracha sauce

Directions:
Mix!

Well, you're supposed to pour the broth in a bowl then put the thin slices of raw meat in the bowl and it cooks on its own. It's like magic! Then you put all the other junk in there. When I say 'junk' I don't mean it negatively, there is just a lot of parts and flavors that go into pho and they all make it delicious. I had fun eating this dish!

I did it! I made pho!

Tank Noodle gained notoriety after being featured in TimeOut Chicago and on WTTW's Check Please so it's almost always busy now. But that shouldn't ever stop you from eating delicious food.