Most Vietnamese have read the accounts of Thạch Lam, Nguyễn Tuân, Vũ Bằng, and Tô Hoài on phở. These beautifully written texts about this "authentic Hà Nội dish" have become classic references for students and connoisseurs of phở culture in Hà Nội. All agree that the immense popularity of phở in Hà Nội can be explained by the fact that it is a Hà Nội specialty, not because one can only have it in Hà Nội, but because it only tastes good in Hà Nội. The authors' words vividly evoke the sights and smells of that essential feature of Hà Nội life, the phở vendor on a street corner—the steam from his pot of broth carrying its fragrances into the air of the neighborhood, his customers gathering around with watering mouths to wait for their bowls of phở, its familiar colors—green of onion leaf and lime, red of chilies, brown of cooked beef and white of rice noodles—promising pleasure to all. It is said that phở can be enjoyed by all classes of people, that it can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; as a meal, or just as a snack.

I grew up in Hà Nội during the 1970s and '80s, a time when phở was a rare treat. In our neighborhood, some three to four miles from the city center, there were very few phở shops and definitely none of the phở vendors of whom I had read. Most of the people were poor; we could not afford to simply go out and get a bowl of phở to eat as a snack, nor even as a meal. Most of our staple food supplies came from government stores, where on each visit Mom had to wait in line for hours with our family's ration stamps. With the low salaries they were paid for their high school teaching jobs, Mom and Dad, like many other Hanoians at the time, had to take a range of extra jobs, from opening a book-for-rent shop with the books that filled Dad's bookshelves, to rolling cigarettes, selling bread, sewing, knitting, embroidering, and anything else that would earn them the extra cash they needed to make the family meals a bit more nutritious. The only time we got to eat phở was when we were ill and didn't feel like eating rice. Mom would take an aluminum container to the closest phở shop, buy a bowl, transfer its contents to her container, and bring the phở back home, where she would insist we eat it all to make sure we got better fast. Meanwhile, our cousins and uncles would sit around joking about how we just pretended to be sick so that we could eat phở, which would otherwise have been considered unaffordable. "Phở sick," they would say, meaning not that you got sick when you ate phở, but that you got sick so that you could eat phở. And I did pretend sometimes.

For a few years, from fourth to eighth grade, I took violin classes at the Hà Nội Children's Palace, situated beside Hoàn Kiếm Lake. In time, I was selected to play for the Palace's amateur youth orchestra. The orchestra only rehearsed in the lead-up to a big ceremony, such as that held on Independence Day or upon the visit of a Czechoslovakian government delegation. As compensation after each performance we received a ticket, equivalent to a loaf of bread stuffed with paté, a steamed bun, or a bowl of phở. The phở was served in a government-run eating hall not far from the Children's Palace. The hall was filled with long tables, and the counter that separated the kitchen from the hall was covered with white bathroom tiles. The bowls of phở were full of noodles. They still did taste good.

So much has changed over the last twenty years. The new paved road that led from my house to the city center, which I traveled on as a teenager by bus, tram, and bicycle, is now full of cars and motorbikes and lined with new houses along its entire length. Bicycles have become marginalized. The tram tracks are long gone. The bus system was recently expanded in order to solve the problem of traffic congestion, which has been getting out of control. There is talk about a proposal put forward by a Russian company to build a subway system costing five billion dollars, equivalent to about one-seventh of Vietnam's annual GDP. Chinese motorbikes have appeared for sale at $400-600 apiece, making them much more attractive than a Japanese or Italian motorbike costing over $2,000 to a population whose average annual income is $420. The government recently issued a decree banning the registration of new motorbikes within the six districts of central Hà Nội. People have begun to go into the suburban areas and even as far as neighboring provinces to find those willing to register their new bikes. In no time, Hà Nội will become even more traffic-clogged as motorbikes with out-of-town license plates fill the streets.

The old eating hall where we used to be treated to a bowl of phở after performances is no longer there. The price for land in Hà Nội has been skyrocketing for the last decade, and today land prices are comparable with those in Tokyo or New York. If one cannot sell land, it is also very profitable to rent it out, preferably to a joint-venture company that plans to turn it into a big shopping mall. The land issue comes up in every conversation. People are going farther and farther outside of Hà Nội to buy land, then waiting for the price to rise. Big apartment buildings are going up in every suburb. With apartments costing as low as $40,000, they are highly sought after by land speculators, newlyweds, and an increasing number of young, single professionals who find more meaning in advancing their careers, attending evening classes for an M.B.A. degree, traveling to Thailand or China, or going out on the town to patronize Hà Nội's new cafés, restaurants, and clubs than in committing to an early marriage.

In today's Hà Nội, one does not come across phở vendors on street corners as in the accounts of Thạch Lam, Nguyễn Tuân, and Vũ Bằng. The city authorities have carried out a major campaign to clear the sidewalks, and the street vendors have been sent back to their homes, whether just around the corner or to a distant village. In the early morning or evening hours, one can still sit down for a bowl outside a phở shop, the owners of which set out a few simple plastic tables and chairs that are easy to move around at the edge of the sidewalk. Phở has become much less special, much less carefully prepared (except in a very few specialized shops, where literally you still have to serve your own bowl of phở—but these are so few that you could count them all with the fingers on one hand). There is even a phở shop that people call "Phở McDonald," because it only serves one type of phở; you pay for a bowl when you walk in, and you wait at the table for your bowl to be brought to you. Times have changed, and kids these days do not have to pretend to be ill to be treated to a bowl of phở.