Pho

With a name like pho, you’d expect something a little more exotic than noodle soup. But that is the point of pho. As a general rule, white Melburnians don’t like anything that’s self-explanatory. Pho can be eaten without straining the sensitive Anglo palate but sounds exotic enough to convince work colleagues you're adventurous. Most White Melburnians believe Vietnamese food cannot be found outside the inner city. This is because they’ve never heard of Springvale.

What I like about pho is the word itself. The way it typically ends with a mispronounced open-ended vowel makes it seem like the word keeps going after you’ve said it, the sound waves from the ‘o’ rippling through space-time and resonating into infinity like the vestiges of the Big Bang on your TV screen or the light that shines from stars that no longer exist.

But it’s just noodle soup.