Saigon Garden

9711 107 Ave., 780-428-8833

Just west of 97th Street on 107th Avenue, Saigon Garden is a cosy place with fewer than a dozen tables. Arty photos of doorways in the city of Saigon adorn the cheery yellow walls. Co-owner Carol Yin has been greeting customers here for 13 years.

From Beijing by way of Toronto, Yin moved to Edmonton in 1996 with her husband, Hue Tran. Tran left his home in Vietnam in 1978 for Canada, bringing with him a passion for pho, a steaming, aromatic Vietnamese soup. Now, seven days a week, from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. (3 p.m. on Tuesdays), you'll find him behind the scenes at Saigon Garden, while Yin serves up the goods. And those goods have stiff competition.

If you stand outside Saigon Garden and throw a pebble in any direction, chances are you'll hit a restaurant that serves pho. Most of these places offer a big tasty bowl at an inexpensive price, so each has to concentrate on doing one thing really well. At Saigon Garden, it's the Number 12 - it's a rice-noodle soup with pork and seafood ($7.50) named after the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.

"The secret," Yin explains with a smile, "is a secret." Saigon's nine signature rice-noodle soups (from a broader menu of about 40 items) feature a fine, clear, yellowy broth, rather than the more typical darker beef or satay soups seen elsewhere on the menu and in the neighbourhood. It's less oily, Yin says, and is lower in MSG than most others. As with most types of pho, the Number 12 is served with a side of basil, bean sprouts, lime and several sauces, including a homemade hot pepper condiment.

Also popular is the Number 17, a Thai-style hot and sour rice-noodle soup ($7.50). Different from the more familiar Chinese hot and sour, which gets its sour notes from vinegar, the lemony base of this soup makes it a hit with customers, Yin says. On a chilly day, the dish heats you up and fills you with its balance of hot, sour, sweet and spicy flavours. If you're souped out, head for the Number 21, a vermicelli bowl with grilled pork and spring rolls ($7.25), or the Number 32, beef cubes on rice with a lemon-pepper dip. At $9.75, this is the priciest item on the menu.

But whatever the pho, it's all about the broth. Its depth and complexity of flavour are the hallmark of the Vietnamese staple. Tran creates a huge pot of the broth every day, simmering it to perfection. "We make sure it's a good dish, with good quality that has the same taste every time," he says. It's that consistency that brings the regulars back.