Eat: Turtle Tower
I was lucky enough to live with my cousin Kim in San Francisco for over four years. She’s my best friend and partner in crime so naturally, we did and still do a lot of eating together. In our apartment on Geary, we probably ate at every restaurant within a 2 mile radius of our place. RIP Little Tokyo.
One of our go to meals was pho at Turtle Tower. Pho is one of my top 3 foods of all time. The broth can cure a cold, the flu and even the worst hangover Jameson shots can bring. Luckily, we lived walking distance and were frequent visitors. It’s probably one of the things I’ve missed the most since moving across the bridge.
Turtle Tower is a family run joint, and there’s a few other locations in the city besides the Richmond location. It’s a different style of pho hailing from Northern Vietnam where the broth is cleaner tasting and the condiments served on the side are different. Their pho ga (chicken) is delicious but my all time favorite is the Phở Bò Áp Chảo Nước. This is a stir fry beef pho with carrots, leeks, celery onions and pan-fried noods. They don’t serve hoisin sauce (it’s the Hanoi way) and I like to put vinegar, fish sauce and sriracha in my dipping bowl for the meat. Don’t credit me for the dipping sauce. I watched some Vietnamese patrons do this and copied them.
Some people (who shall not be named) think Turtle Tower is not flavorful but I will debate them to this day that Turtle Tower is delicious. When I was in Hanoi, I couldn’t find a place that rivaled Turtle Tower.
Location - Various (see below)
Skip that line at Dragon Beaux and eat at Turtle Tower!
