This brick-lined restaurant with ample tables lurks under the elevated 4 train tracks in Fordham Manor, in a small Cambodian neighborhood near Edgar Allen Poe’s country cottage. The pho is in the style of the Mekong Delta southwest of Saigon, with delicate rice noodles that don’t really seem to be the point of this mild soup, which has great beef balls, nice sliced steak, and an oniony savor. Chicken, vegan, and seafood versions are available. 

Though this tiny Manhattan Valley spot has a seat or two for eating in, most customers prefer to carry out, which accounts for the odd way the pho is packaged: in deconstructed form, even when opting to decide to dine on the premises. The eye of round is brilliantly red and sits in the plastic tub with raw onions and noodles, until you uncork the rich brown broth and pour it in. A great version of pho, but only if assembled fast enough.

The menu of chef Jonathan Vu’s Upper West Side newcomer is compact, the premises deep and comfortable despite its adherence to fast-casual principals. Two kinds of beef pho are offered with a choice of cuts, with variety cuts like tripe and tendon eliminated, and Italian-style meatballs substituted for beef balls. This is pho tailored for local tastes. The usual sprouts, basil, and fresh jalapeno accompany. Pick one meat for the lowest price, and be very satisfied with the soup, which uses a very nice beef broth of medium weight.

Located in the laid-back downstairs Super HK supermarket food court, I Luv Pho presents a refreshingly simple and straightforward take on Vietnam’s national soup. The beef balls are particularly good and bouncy, and I’d recommend just getting the cut-price beef ball pho. Another advantage of this narrow stall is a generous hand with the beef, sprouts, and basil. Seating is profuse in the middle of the food court.

The menu of this handsome, modernistic spot — something like a deep cave with an open kitchen — on Astoria’s rollicking Broadway plays fast and loose with conventional dishes as it reinvents them. District Saigon offers a version of pho with floating barbecue-style smoked brisket, to which one may add things like beef balls and tendon. The broth is pleasantly simple and transparent without a trace of sweetness, the noodles delicate and firm.

Here is the rare place that specializes in chicken pho, known as pho ga. It comes with a dipping sauce of chicken fat and ginger, which has a pleasing orangish color, with a raw egg immersed in the broth, to be mixed in with your chopsticks. The Kips Bay premises has all sorts of blue accents and is handsomely turned out.

What if you don’t want a gigundo bowl of pho with a ponderously heavy and salty broth that you can’t finish? Chelsea’s Omai offers an elegant setting with white tablecloths, and a single light bowl of pho with broth like a French consommé. Floating only one type of beef, that bowl proves refreshing in its simplicity and at under $12, relatively inexpensive, too.

Luu’s is a sandwich shop specializing in banh mi that caters to students from nearby Baruch College. Though it offers pho only as a sideline, that pho is spectacular. The rice noodles are diaphanous, the brisket fatty and coarsely textured. The raw onions strewn on top have been selected for their sweetness.

This wildly popular MacDougal Street institution offers what is probably the richest version of pho in town. The unabashedly aggressive broth is heavily laden with tallow, and an entire beef rib — sloughing a substantial quantity of beef — is thrust in the middle of the soup, eclipsing every other ingredient including the noodles. Ask for an extra lime wedge.

The handsome setting, with a red cyclo (bicycle rickshaw) in the front window, is reason enough to visit this East Village spot. The pho from chef Jimmy Ly is good, in a Saigon sort of way. The “Madame Vo” version features flank steak, bone marrow, and — best of all, to my way of thinking — bouncy beef balls. A plate of fresh basil, sprouts, and jalapenos comes on the side, along with bottles of hoisin and sriracha. The broth is said to have been boiled for 24 hours, and the rice noodles are thicker than most and perhaps more al dente.

Spawned as a casual, counter-service branch of Hanoi House just down the block, Hanoi Soup Shop turns out an unfussy pho propelled by onions. cilantro, and green onions. The broth is particularly strong, having been boiled for 30 hours and seemingly devoid of sweet spices. Don’t miss the pickled garlic vinegar and house hot sauce, for adding to the soup or dipping the meat in.

Of course, the word “pho” refers to the pale rice noodles that are the point of the soup, not the broth or the beef. That means it’s fair game to include a stir-fry of the plain noodles in this pho round-up. Chef Hannah Wong at the modern Van Da divides dishes into broad regions, and, as it’s done in the territory north of Hanoi, pho are offered as a stir fry, in this case also containing trumpet mushrooms and mustard greens, elegant and simple.

For a time late in the last century, this was the city’s favorite pho spot — and not only because it was located on the Lower East Side. Indeed, the pho was fine, with a light broth that tasted slightly of five-spice powder, sturdy noodles, and a bewildering number of beef types dropped in the bowl. Most customers ordered xe lua, the most deluxe version, because why not? Later, we learned to love some beef choices more than others. Note: There’s a new branch downstairs at the Essex Market with a limited menu.

When this place first appeared on Chrystie Street in 2014, it was a revelation. A giant locomotive on display made punning reference to the largest bowl of beef pho, known as xe lua (“train”). More than a dozen other permutations of beef pho are offered, plus chicken and shrimp versions, both of which deploy the same broth. Shrimp in beef broth? Oddly, it works. The beef balls are particularly good. You can have them on the side for dipping in sauces, as it’s done in Houston.

Named after a coastal city in southern Vietnam, Nha Trang Centre began as a handsomer offshoot of Nha Trang One, which was one of the earliest Baxter Street Vietnamese cafes, pioneering a menu that parsed beef pho into a dozen versions. Its offspring experiments with the broth, not confining itself to the most conventional. In fact, one of the best things on the menu is pho bo satee, which adds peanut paste to the beef broth, making it taste almost West African, and doubly so because it packs a bit of heat.

The dinner menu explores the cooking of Laos and Thailand at this Tribeca restaurant, while the lunch and brunch menu goes pop, principally with chicken wings, bowls, and banh mis. The biggest and most impressive feed, however, is an excellent bowl of pho in the style of Nong-Khai, a northeast Thai town on the Mekong River, attesting to the migration of the soup across national borders. Based on a highly caramelized oxtail broth, the soup is furnished with a whole slew of dips, herbs, and add-ins, and the brisket included therein is delightfully rich and gooey.

Pho Bar is a jazzy spot with lots of murals, and some of the most diverse and interesting pho in town. One features spicy beef rib, while a vegetarian version highlights portabella mushrooms. My favorite drops big bulbous oxtails into the broth, and there’s another with snow crab. Both Saigon and Hanoi versions available, and a big yellow neon sign burns on the wall, “Crazy Rich Broth.” Note: The Greenwich Village branch has a much shorter menu.

Formerly located on a bleak stretch of Metropolitan Avenue in Ridgewood, this well-loved restaurant migrated to an even more obscure corner of Bushwick. While it previously served only pho ga (chicken soup), now it offers a Hanoi-style take on pho bo, with rare beefsteak and brisket, plus oxtail and beef ribs available as add ins. The dark broth comes sprinkled with fried shallots that impart a nice crunch. The rice noodles are almost as thick as udon, and a plate of sprouts, onions, and basil make this a sort of Hanoi/Ho Chi Minh hybrid. Pho ga still available, and slightly preferred. The newer branch at the Dekalb Market doesn’t enjoy the same reputation.

The sliced eye of round thrown into the soup is so rare it’s still mooing, at this Sunset Park Vietnamese stalwart famous for its banh mi sandwiches. The dining room offers views of the street, and it couldn’t be cozier, as the neighborhood population darts in for a coffee or a pastry from the bakery case. The beef pho is way above average, and the accompanying herbs and sprouts sing with freshness in one of the city’s quintessential Saigon-style bowls.

The modest but charming Little Saigon Pearl sits in an obscure location, dwarfed by the other Bensonhurst and Bath Beach Vietnamese restaurants. Evoking a stall in Ho Chi Minh City’s Cho Ben Thanh market, the menu specializes in street food, including mummy-wrapped and deep-fried shrimp, mint-laced summer rolls, and a pho with a nearly opaque broth offering a choice of four beef add-ins.

This small unpretentious shoebox of a place poised over the light rail station at New Dorp really rocks the pho, and they’ll let you depart from the pre-set beef combinations, which is how I scored a bowl with just brisket and beef balls — my two favorite inclusions. The broth is pleasantly plain, and not overly laden with cinnamon or five-spice powder, and the noodles are soft and of medium circumference. The raw white onion and cilantro make the broth soar.