Phở 'S

A Vietnamese ingredient

Ngọc Linh ginseng
in the broth.

Our family keeps a ginseng forest in Kon Tum, high on the Ngọc Linh range. So when it came time to open a phở shop, putting ginseng in the broth was barely a decision.

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Several Ngọc Linh ginseng plants growing from a mossy mound under damp forest canopy, thin stems rising among ferns.
Ngọc Linh ginseng growing in the family's plantation.

The hidden medicine plant

Ngọc Linh ginseng grows in exactly one place on earth, the Ngọc Linh range. The Xơ Đăng people who live below those peaks knew it long before it had a botanical name, and they called it cây thuốc giấu — the hidden medicine plant. Hidden in the old forest, and kept hidden from outsiders.

It is not grown in rows out in the sun. It sits under the forest canopy in damp leaf litter, and it cannot be lifted until it is at least ten years old. Growing it has more in common with keeping a forest than with farming. The plant takes its time, and the grower's only real job is to wait.

Close-up of a Ngọc Linh ginseng root with its fine root hairs intact, lying exposed on damp green moss.
A ten-year root, its jointed stem and fine hairs still in the moss.

Our family's forest

The family's plantation trades as Sâm Ngọc Linh Kontum K5. The province allocated more than 7,000 hectares of forest for planting under the canopy; over 600 hectares are planted so far, and around 200 of those are past ten years old and now in harvest. For more than twenty years the work the family has been most stubborn about is not expanding the area, it is holding on to the original seed stock.

The root in our stockpot does not come through a wholesale market. It comes down from the forest through family hands, which is why we can tell you which root is in the pot.

When it goes in

The dried root goes in at the start and simmers with the beef bones for the whole batch, rather than being dropped in near the end for the smell of it. Only a long simmer gets the flavour down into the broth instead of leaving it sitting on top like an added scent.

Every batch, without exception. Not just the signature dish — every pot of broth at Phở ’S has ginseng in it.

Hot broth poured from a wooden ladle into a porcelain pot of phở, with fresh ginseng root alongside.
Broth ladled into the porcelain pot in the restaurant.

We choose Ngọc Linh ginseng for its flavour, and for the qualities Vietnamese people have long valued in it.

What a pot without it would lose

If you want to know what the ginseng does, picture the pot without it. Three things would go:

The family's own products

From the same forest, the family also makes tea, honey and bird's nest drinks under the Sâm Ngọc Linh Kontum K5 name. Orders are taken by phone, and the product pages are in Vietnamese.

See all products (in Vietnamese)

A bowl of Nourishing Phở in a red porcelain pot, with ginseng root and a teapot alongside.

Any bowl will show you

The ginseng is in every pot of broth, so any bowl of soup phở will show you what it does. If you want the one the family fusses over most, order the Nourishing Phở, served in heat-holding porcelain.

Try the Nourishing Phở Why we chose the porcelain pot