What looks like 100 years’ worth of splattered soup stains the walls and floor of Pho Bac’s triangular fishbowl at Boren and Jackson, a joint that strains the decorative limits of the plastic poinsettia. That said, in a city veritably drowning in the Vietnamese beef noodle soup known as pho—this funny little institution (and its sister locations in Denny Triangle and Rainier Valley) does a version for the ages. Each slurp of the broth echoes with chlorophyll-bright scallions and cilantro, all of which is so harmonious with the savory thin-sliced beef and tangle of rice noodles you almost don’t feel the need to doctor up your bowl from the side plates of bean sprouts and basil, lime wedges and sliced jalapeno. But oh, what a mistake that would be.