It's Summer, PHO Sure!

As a teacher, summertime means a little time to relax and destress a little, but of course my monthly dinners still continue.  When trying to come up with a theme for my June monthly dinner a friend suggested a pho theme.  I have never even tried pho, but I decided to run with the idea and combine summer and pho into one theme...

Invite: I found a clipart image of a pho bowl I liked online and centered my color scheme and invite around that.  Added a few puns and simple text.

Decorations: I kept things simple for decor. I used a large wooden serving tray and accent pieces I already owned to place in the center of the table and serve as a pho bar of toppings.  I crafted a couple paper lanterns to set in the tray as well. The toppings I used were limes, cilantro, mint, green onion, bean sprouts, cilantro, soy sauce, and siracha.

I had some fun coming up with place card names for each guest that somehow incorporated "pho" into the description -- un"pho"getable, "pho"cused, "pho"nominal, etc.  I added the guest's name after the description and set them on a pair of chopsticks.

For the napkins, I took blue paper napkins and folded them to look like a karate gi.

I designed the wine labels with pho sayings as well. My favorite was Pho Crying Out Loud...Pour the Red Wine! The white wine played on the Pho-Cast and weather with a 100% chance of chardonnay.

For wine charms, I designed tags with various ingredients of pho and a fun title - Meat Maestro, Broth Babe, Lime Legend, etc.

Menu: Pho the Appetizer, we had chicken potstickers.  I purchased these from Trader Joes.  Simple and quick to prepare on the stovetop and tasty to eat. 

Of course the main Pho-cus of the meal was pho.  I looked at a lot of recipes, and decided on a Vietnamese Beef Noodle Pho from thekichn.com.  To save time, you can purchase the base/broth premade, but I decided to try it from scratch.  Having no experience making or even tasting pho prior to this, I don't really have much to compare this recipe, but I thought it tasted good.  My guests thought the same, but definitely had preferences to the local restaurants they generally order from.

For the dessert Pho-nale, I made a Key Lime Eclair Cake.  It was simple to make & tasty.

Favor: As an easy take-home gift, I purchased individual bowls of Pho from the local dollar store.  I added a pair of chopsticks and a tag that read "Thanks PHO Coming!"  Super simple, but perfect for the theme.

It was a Pho-nominal evening with friends I am Pho-tunate to have!