Some ostrich in your pho, sir?

The well-known Vietnamese soup, pho, is typically served with beef, called pho bo, or with chicken, pho ga. Some cooks have come up with dozens of versions to satisfy every conceivable palate. In HCM City one restaurant owner uses different kinds of noodles and sells it for VND24,000 (US$1.5), 24 hours a day, and thus calls his shop Pho 24.

But all these different varieties are still served with beef or chicken. Only Thien Sanh Tri has managed to be innovative by featuring ostrich meat. Tri's restaurant, in front of Tan Dinh Cathedral on Hai Ba Trung Street, sells pho da dieu, a soup that connoisseurs say looks like traditional pho bo but tastes better.

Ostrich is said to have the same quantity of protein and calories but less fat and cholesterol than beef or chicken. The price is higher; $20 a kilo in China and $40 in Europe and the US. In Viet Nam, it sells for only VND170,000 a kilo ($10.3) because the bird is raised domestically, thanks to Tri's initiative.

A graduate of Can Tho University, Tri worked first as a tour guide and property agent. In 1995, he heard that Thuy Phuong Poultry Research Centre in Ha Tay Province had successfully incubated ostrich eggs that the then Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Cong Tan had brought back from South Africa. Tri believed that the arid land of Phan Rang in central Viet Nam could be good for ostriches, and decided to buy 10 young birds.

Today, his farm has more than 100 ostriches, with more to come. Since the problem now is finding enough outlets to sell to, Tri often visits big hotels and restaurants. He also commissions tanners to process ostrich leather, which he gives, along with eggshells, to skilful artisans to make handicrafts. "I'm very happy to see international hotels like the Rex and Caravelle sell ostrich handicrafts, which is a foreign poultry domesticated in one of the poorest places in Viet Nam," Tri says.

i can't believe it. OSTRICH PHO .. ROFLS