By The Bowl -- Pho Houses Fill You Up To The Brim With Noodles And More

## 1/2 $ Cafe 88 (Pho 88 Cafe), 1038-A S. Jackson St. Vietnamese. Breakfast, lunch, dinner (same menu; $3 to $5) 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday; until 8 p.m. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. No alcohol. No credit cards. Small nonsmoking area. 325-0180. -------------------------------

A BOWL OF PHO: IT appears to be the ideal diet food.

No, it is not without fat, for pho usually contains at least some quite fatty slices of meat.

And no, it is not free of red meat. It's loaded with meat - usually, almost always, beef in all of its edible forms, including some you never dreamed of.

And no, it is not low in carbohydrates. A bowl of pho is heaped with a grand swirl of rice noodles.

Why then do I call this a diet pleaser?

Rarely have I sat inside of one category of restaurant and seen so many lean people eating so much, so happily and for so little money.

Pho remains a bit of an enigma. Even the pronunciation of the name can lead to 15 minutes of dueling consonants.

Foo, fuh, fah, fa, fu, phew.

Not fo.

"Pho is pronounced like the musical note `Fa,' " explains an insert in the menu from the Pho 88 Cafe. Yet even the Pho 88 has a bit of a mystery attached to its name.

The menu calls the place the Pho 88. The sign above the small, bustling restaurant, 1038A S. Jackson St., says Pho 88. Everybody calls it the Pho 88. Except for the phone company, which lists it as the Cafe 88.

Some regulars just call it "The 88," and leave it at that. The number, by the way, refers to the year the cafe-restaurant got started.

Whatever it is called, and however you choose to pronounce its main meal, go there - or to some pho house - for some of the most inviting, soul-satisfying foods in Seattle.

Pho is the national dish of Vietnam, primarily of North Vietnam. The name means "with noodles." It is essentially a clear, light beef broth, laced with thin rice noodles (although broad noodles - and occasionally egg noodles - are sometimes served ) layered over and dotted through with several kinds of beef. Some long-cooked; some barely cooked; some uncooked.

It is served in two sizes of bowls, large and larger (a few pho houses serve a "medium," which is also, by most culinary standards, large). The cost is almost always less than $5 - usually between $3.50 and $4.50 for more than you think you can possibly eat.

I first encountered pho several years ago, in Rainier Valley at a place called the Pho Hoa (4406 Rainier Ave. S.; they have since opened a branch in the International District). An emerging, modest West Coast chain, the Pho Hoa served 17 different kinds of pho - basically different kinds of beef-noodle combinations.

As with most pho houses, it was a high-volume operation. Containers of spoons and chopsticks are in place on the table, along with a tray of spicy condiments.

The steaming bowl arrives, along with a bountiful plate of bean sprouts, purple basil sprigs, sliced onions and sliced jalapeno peppers. You augment the former with a bunch of the latter, stir in assorted sauces (hot, tart-sweet, fish), squeeze in some lime and you are cooking, literally.

Most pho dishes contain several slices of raw, lean beef (you can order it with only cooked meat, if you choose), and by stirring around the paper-thin slices of meat (usually the eye of the round) in the hot broth, you cook the meat to your selected degree of pink.

The next pho house I began to frequent was the Pho Bac, 1314 S. Jackson St., always populated with Vietnamese youths. A congenial place that got heavy use, it sits where the south end of Boren slides down the hill into the beginning of the Rainier Valley.

The Vietnamese eat pho for breakfast, lunch or dinner - and many pho houses close down fairly early in the evening. Few are open past 9 p.m. Many close as early as 7 p.m.

Recently, I settled in on the Cafe 88 as my current favorite. It's small and the 15 or so tables frequently are filled. But the service is prompt and friendly and the turnover is brisk. As in many Asian restaurants, the percentage of cigarette smokers can be disturbing, but the Cafe 88 solves that problem easily, if without technical sophistication. The front door remains open for periodic stretches and the air clears.

If you want your sinuses cleared, as well, that's easily done. Just ladle in some of the hotter ingredients. A chili-oil paste (made with crushed serranos) is served along with a large bottle of brilliantly red chili sauce, almost as piquant as it is hot.

The reasons I decided to stay with the "88" are as varied, subtle and persuasive as its beef stock. The food is great, the menu a bit more diverse than some other pho houses and the Vietnamese-style iced coffee is the best I've ever had.

The coffee (Ca Phe Sua, $1.25), makes the average Seattle latte taste bitter. The beans are French-roasted, steamed into espresso and blended with sweetened condensed milk before being served - usually over ice as a kind of dessert.

But the main attraction is pho, in 10 different varieties, including a not-to-be-missed Pho Ga ($3.50 or $4 depending upon bowl size), a chicken-noodle soup of extraordinary appeal.

Some of the beef-pho additives include Bo Vien (dense, peppery meatballs), brisket, both lean and fatty, Tai (rare or raw beef), Tai and Chin (a combination of cooked and rare), beef tendon and "bible tripe."

Tripe and tendon are, for most Westerners, acquired tastes and the acquisition may be some time coming. But they lend a glorious richness to the dish, even if you leave them in the bottom of the bowl.

The Cafe 88 is proud of its main ingredient - the beef broth. It's made fresh nightly in large stock pots in the open kitchen at the rear of the cafe, where it's simmered all night over beef bones, onion, star anise and ginger. It's ready to go by breakfast, seven days a week - completely clear and fragrant, totally without grease. The broth is finished with chopped green onions and cilantro.

As one friend observed, after dipping in the fresh herbs, marinated onions and sprouts, "I fell like I'm sitting near a creek eating watercress or something!"

The freshness of the plate of greens reinforces that impression. The herbs, Ngo Gai and La Que (the latter is a form of purple-stemmed basil) are flown in fresh from Hawaii.

Eating pho can be a bit of a ritual, although almost anything goes. Typically, regulars lift the noodles out of the broth with chopsticks held in the right hand, and then, before swallowing, ingest a splash of broth from a large metal soup spoon held in the left.

Unlike some pho houses, the Cafe 88 serves rice-noodle soups with crab, shellfish or even with a duck-cabbage combination. All are under $5.

Roll-ups, either with lettuce leaves or thin, rice-flour crepes, are popular. Consider the Banh Cuon 88: Sauteed shrimp, pork and minced mushrooms served with fine-ground, fat-free sausage, steamed bean sprouts and a light sweet-and-sour fish sauce ($4).

They have a few desserts, including one pleasant concoction of water chestnuts, mung beans, tapioca and coconut milk over ice. But the Ca Phe Sua has always been the finisher of choice for my tastes.

(Copyright 1993, John Hinterberger. All rights reserved.) John Hinterberger's food columns and restaurant reviews appear Sundays in Pacific and Fridays in Tempo. Greg Gilbert is a Seattle Times photographer.