Eat Fuh, Marrickville

The first thing you'll notice when you walk into Eat Fuh is the gargantuan stock pot. We're talking over a metre high; tall enough so a six-year-old child could stand inside it and you could still fit the lid on. The other glaring thing you can't miss are the crowds. Eat Fuh has only been open for a month but the dining room is full, packed wall to wall with punters slurping their signature pho noodle soup.


The dining room

Sitting down and eating from a ceramic bowl, not a plastic tub, is a new luxury for many of its customers. These are the fans who followed owner Huang Nguyen's Eat Fuh noodle stall at farmers and growers markets all over Sydney. Their bricks and mortar shop in Marrickville is the culmination of two years growth on the markets circuit. Don't worry. The market stalls will continue.


The giant stock pot

At the front of the shop, the enormous stock pot takes pride of place, easily visible to passersby through the floor-to-ceiling front windows. How big a ladle would you need? we wonder.


Tap on the stock pot

As we suspected, there's a tap at the bottom of the pot. Ingenious.


Rare beef and flank pho noodle soup $14

Eat Fuh's menu is a concise offering of classics. Choose from pho, beef stew noodle soup, Hue style noodle soup, noodle salads and soy ginger chicken rice. They also offer a vegan pho and a vegan noodle salad.


Tendon for an extra $1

The pho comes in either chicken or beef. The beef includes rare beef and the option of beef flank. Add tendons, tripe or meat balls for an extra dollar.

In a rare move for a Vietnamese noodle soup, bowls arrive already adorned with bean sprouts and Thai basil. This is great news for people who want to dive in straight away but less appealing for anyone averse to either.

You can ask for your herbage on the side when you order (if you remember). We kinda miss the ritual of dunking in your bean sprouts into the soup and that aromatic hit of Thai basil as you impatiently tear off each leaf.


Condiment trolley 

A mobile condiment trolley is a nifty way to help yourself to fresh lemon wedges, chilli, sriracha chilli sauce and hoi sin sauce. This tends to migrate its way around the dining room as required.


Rice noodles in the beef pho

As for the soup? It's quite a subtle broth, without any strong echo of cinnamon or star anise. We find it a tad on the salty side too. If you're looking for a lighter stock this is ideal for you. We're wistful for a fattier richness to the both though.


Hue style noodle soup $15

The Hue style noodle soup is better known to locals as bun bo hue, a beef noodle soup with chilli and lemongrass.


Thin noodles in the bun bo hue

Instead of the usual thick and chewy noodles usually found in bun bo hue, Eat Fuh uses thin noodles. Again this is a fairly light stock that is gentle on the lemongrass and chilli. I was hankering for a pot of self-serve lemongrass and chilli paste like they have at Dong Ba. There's no cube of pigs blood either but the peppery pork meat is tasty and the portion of pork meat and beef flank is noticeably generous.


Pork and prawn spring rolls $10

Entrees include beef wrapped in betel leaves (bo la lot) and rice paper rolls (yes there's a vegan version too) but we go with the classic spring roll order. They're blistering hot from the deep fryer, packed with prawn, pork and vegetables.


Vietnamese iced coffee $5

You can still BYO ($3 per person) while they're waiting for their liquor license to come through. The Vietnamese iced coffee will definitely put the pep back into your step, intense with both sweetened condensed milk and bitter coffee.


Ladling cooked noodles into a bowl for pho

The open kitchen at the front offers plenty of tableside action. It's fascinating to watch the entire production line, from the cooking of noodles to the final garnish of herbs.


Beef wrapped in betel leaves on the grill


Wok-tossing action in the open kitchen





Eat Fuh
274 Illawarra Road, Marrickville, Sydney
Tel: +61 (0)416 880 997

Open daily 11am-10pm

You can also find their noodle stall at Bondi Junction, Double Bay, Entertainment Quarter, Frenchs Forest, Kiama, Kings Cross, Marrickville and Ramsgate markets


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