Madame Mai Phó Bò Beef Noodle Soup Review

I was reading through my comments the other day, and I came across this comment right here. Grego, get to Coles and buy yourself a Madam May Pho beef noodle soup. 750 gram for $10. You're gonna love it. Well, I don't usually take advice from anyone, but when I do, it's from that guy there. So I went to Coles and picked one of these up for 10 bucks. And it is 750 grams. It's a full-on bowl here, and you will find it in the freezer section if you're gonna go out looking for it. Now, it does have a few spills on it. It says it's a flavorful beef broth simmered with charred herbs for 20 hours, topped with premium Australian brisket, meatballs, and garnished with onions. And it's made in the heart of Asia, right down there in South Australia. Anyway, it does say beef noodle soup. I am wondering how much beef and noodles are actually in it. Well, it's mainly beef broth, 59 1⁄2%. So it's water, beef bone, some herbs, spices, coriander. Ooh, ginger. Noodles, 26%. They're rice noodles and contain wheat. So bad luck, celiacs. Beef brisket is 6 1⁄2%. Beef meatballs, 4%. Onions, 2 1⁄2%. Spring onions, 1 1⁄2%. Anyway, if they taste any good, it says here that the energy is 2010 kilojoules, which isn't really that much. I suppose it is mainly water. But that means you can have like four of these every day and still have a body like the old Gregor. Protein's about 4 1⁄2%. Fat is very low at 2%. And carbs, I mean, even that's low at about 7%. With salt, well, if it's not salty enough, then I'll probably just add some extra salt or maybe some fish sauce into it. Maybe even some lime juice. Anyway, let's take it out open out of the packaging and see what it looks like. Hopefully it just slips out like this. Oh, all right. Well, can't see much, but I can see in there some of the rice noodles. Or are they wheat? Anyway, how do we cook these things? Okay, well, remove bowl from cardboard. Peel plastic film about a third of the way, leaving a slight open space to vent. Microwave on high setting, 1,000 watts for eight minutes. Remove from microwave, carefully peel off the plastic film completely and gently mix the contents, if still slightly frozen. Microwave again on high for two minutes more. Carefully remove from microwave as the bowl will be hot. Gee, who would have thought putting something in the microwave would make it hot? Right, well, we need to peel this back a third. I don't have my tape measure, but that's a rough guesstimate. And now this just goes in the old Molle Juica Nuica. Or, well, my microwave's 1,000, 1,100 watts actually. But I'll just do it the same. How much more damage could happen if I do that? Okaleed, okaleed, well, that's the first eight minutes. Oh, right, so I just better gently bring this over. And I'm not sure if there's any frozen bits in there. Let me use my chopstick. Oh, hang on. Yeah, seems like there's a big chunk of frozen stuff there still. That's all right, supposed to be. Oh, I can see some beef here already. Or is that a meatball? A sliced meatball or a piece of beef? Anyway, let's mix that up. Oh, this smells so good. It smells like I'm walking past a Vietnamese restaurant. And two more minutes for you. And that's the final two minutes. All right. Oh, oh, ah, ah, ah, oh, no, oh, God. Oh, please, ah, ah, don't drop it. Ooh, ooh, that is hot. But let me just take this off here. Ooh, wow, that's looking pretty nice. Oh, and there was something I wanted to do. Give it the old weight test. 750 grams, 763, I guess, without the packaging and everything, spot on. Now, does it look anything like it does in the picture? Well, there seems to be a lot of beef brisket and meatballs there. And well, there's your meatballs. And have a look at this. Here's some of the 6.5% brisket. And I guess if you move all the meat to the top, then, yeah, and added some lime slices, mate. It looks pretty much exactly the same. But those beef brisket pieces look good. And here's your meatballs. Ooh, wow. There's a few green onions here, too. Ooh, that smells good. You can really smell like the spices they use and the ginger in it. Right, well, I am wondering what their beef meatball tastes like. It does look pretty good. Rubbery. They're flavoursome, though. Pretty good. And this beef brisket. Actually seems like there's quite a lot in there. There's quite a few big pieces like this. They look like meat curtains. Mm, aromatic, a bit chewy, but really tasty. Now, this beef broth. Flavourful, nice, beefy, herby, spicy. But there's no, like, heat or anything in this. But very flavourful, and it does leave some oiliness on your tongue, too. Mm, mm. Let's grab some of these noodles. And the beauty of it is, is after that eight, 10 minutes in the microwave, I can still hold the bowl not too badly. It is kind of warm underneath, but the soup and broth that I just had wasn't, like, burning my tongue off. So it had already settled down nicely. Okay, let's try these. Mm, mm, wow. Super soft, mushy, holds its form, but dissolves in your mouth nicely. Let me grab a few bits here, a few bits there, a bit of this, and a bit of that. Let's give it a go. Oh, well, that's pretty tasty. The thing I'm really liking about it is its aroma and its flavour. It's got this aromatic smell and taste and oiliness and herbiness. I mean, it's got green onions in there, which when you get one, it's really nice. The beef's nice. It's a bit chewy, a bit rubbery, but, I mean, tender and nice. Well, this is actually really good. I reckon the 10 bucks is pretty good for this, even though it's probably only got two bucks worth of ingredients in it. But still, for a big, solid 750-gram meal, which 60% of it is water, so that's 450 grams of water, which leaves 300 grams of actual product. Now, I mean, it'd be nice if it went on sale, that's for sure. If it did, mate, definitely go and grab yourself some. But for 10 bucks, it seems all right, and it tastes really good. Tastes authentic, smells good, tastes good. It's got quite a bit of meat in it. What more do you want? And the beef broth is seasoned nicely as well. Well, there you go. Madam Mai's Authentic Taste Pho Bo Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup in the freezer section of Coles. I'm not sure if it's in Woolies or anything, but, yeah, one to look out for if you're into Vietnamese pho, as they call it. Yeah, I reckon if you get one, you're gonna like it. Anyway, I hope this video helps you decide what to try, what to buy, and what to avoid. If you've made it this far, why don't you show the video some thumbing love? Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time I eat a frozen dinner. I'll see you then. ♪ Ooh yeah, this is Greg's Kitchen ♪ ♪ Where the reviews are finger lickin' ♪ ♪ Ooh yeah ♪