Golden Deli Vietnamese, San Gabriel Valley {restaurant} - Eastern Medicine

I wasn't kidding when I said I was eating chicken soup for both lunch and dinner in an attempt to thwart a flu that I don't even have...

But it's not as obsessive as it seems when you have access to a wide variety that extends far beyond the traditional "all-American" version of diced chicken breast and noodles in a somewhat unnaturally neon yellow broth.

Tortilla soup. Jewish matzo ball soup. Greek avgolemono. Thai tom yum gai.

Of course, having all those options, but ignoring them completely, save for the one for which you will drive-time as far as 55 minutes when you never drive any distance for any food, is taking it to a level so different that you're not even in the sane same game anymore.

I went to Golden Deli to try a bowl of their pho. Not the beefy dac biet beauty that others extol, but the pho ga. It was good, better than others with its slippery oysters of dark meat, but it's the plate of crisp pork eggrolls that you wrap in lettuce yourself, Phan Cha Gio, for which I'd go back.

{pictured above: Pho Ga (Vietnamese rice noodle soup with chicken)}