Another thing that was added mid-March was the Google ads on the side bar. I started this as a way to keep track of how many page views I was getting, and thanks to you all, my dear readers and generous referring sources, my numbers have gone up a lot in the past couple of weeks! Yippe! I wonder if Google is going to come after me if I post what I am going to tell you next... Well, if you no longer see Google ads here, you'll know that they booted me out of their system... Anyway, here's the Google ad mystery.
Since adding Google ads to my blog, Google has been keeping track of how many page views and how many 'clicks' on ads I get per day. I get paid per click, or so I thought... But some days, I get 32 cents per 2 clicks. Other days, I get 5 cents per click. My highest gross was $1.13 for 7 clicks in one day, although I've had days with more than 10 clicks in one day. I only got 74 cents for 10 clicks on one day, even though on a different day, I made $1.05 on 4 clicks. This is all with approximately the same number of page views. Mysterious. If any of you advanced bloggers have any insight, please let me know!
OK, so that was the Google Ads mystery part. Now, onto the grub!
Since I've already told you a little about pho+?, I won't bore you with the basics. I was trying to remember when I had my first bowl of pho+?, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't think of when or where I had that first bowl. My most memorable bowl was the one my wild and crazy Vietnamese friend, Cindy, made in NC. It was a warm bowl of beefy noodles, but it was a bit too beefy and a bit too star-anise-y for pho+? novices. Unfortunately, this bowl was too intense for my best friend (the very advanced Sushido Ikkyu practitioner, the Mogu Mogu) and the Mogu Mogu was seen eating raw octopus before he would touch another bowl of pho+?... I was already at least a mid-ranking pho+? connoisseur at the time, so I must've had my first bowl a lot earlier... Perhaps it was my sister, the Unchipu, in NYC who introduced me to it.
Regardless of what my past pho+? experiences may be, I now love a steamy bowl of pho+? over either the ramen or the udon. This is nearly sacrilege as a Japanese, considering the ramen and the udon are often placed in the top 10 culinary achievements by the Japanese. But to me, pho+? has the best of both the ramen and the udon worlds. Pho+? has that tasty land-animal strength in its soup that udon doesn't have, but lacks the overpowering oil and richness that ruins ramen for me. I can even feel somewhat healthy eating pho+?, since I can add a ton of bean sprouts and herbs. And to top it all off, pho+? (almost) NEVER costs more than $6 and comes to your table almost always within 5 min of ordering. How much better can it get?
My current favorite pho+? place is Pho+? Ao Sen in Oakland. This place has one of the best bowls of pho+? I've ever had. And I've had quite a few now. They have a wonderful - absolutely wonderful - broth of pure beef goodness with no gimmicks - not a hint of artificial sweetness to distract from the strong beef flavor. The noodles are chewy and retain their texture all the way through to the end. This bowl is absolutley worth the drive from almost anywhere in the Bay Area. I have not found a better bowl of pho+? anywhere, even in San Jose...
If you have any suggestions for other pho+? shops, let me know. My friends will vouch for this - I travel for good food!
7 comments:
Being from San Jose, myself, I now have to do some face-saving action. Before I became a budding foodie, I knew that certain phở shops in San Jose were quite good; the sentiment was also echoed by other of my country men and women. But I'll have to take Alice there so that she could do some first-hand comparison very soon. I have in mine Phở Ý in South San Jose.
Any other suggestions from those who are in the know will be greatly appreciated.
I never have pho before, but Alice’s photos remind me a Chinese dish called “Over bridge rice noodle”.
This dish has several key ingredients: a big bowl of boiling hot chicken broth covered with chicken fat, soaked rice noodle, shredded raw veges and paper thin raw meat. All “dry ingredients” are put in the hot chicken broth on the table. They will be cooked in seconds and are very juicy.
Ingredients:
http://www.cnta.com/5-ztly/2003/image/zhuanxiang/62-1.jpg Final product:
http://photo.sohu.com/2004/07/03/62/Img220836200.jpg
It is said this dish was invented by a wife who brought lunch to her husband every day in a place pretty far away from their home. Although she tried very hard, all dishes were cold when they arrived at her husband’s hand. So she brought a boiling hot chicken broth and kept the fat to hold the temperature and cooked all veges, meats and rice noodle before her husband’s eye in the hot broth. From then on, this happy husband would have hot and fresh lunch everyday. Because she passed a bridge on her way, the dish was called “over bridge rice noodle”.
I DARE you to come try Pho in Toronto!!!!!!!!!
I don't remember the name (cuz I can't pronounce it), but there's a tiny Vietnamese joint that's open 24 hours on Spadina. We always have Pho (hubby has BBQ pork and rice) when we get in to Toronto at 2AM.
Whoa! Sounds like we're going to have a coast-vs-coast, US-vs-Canada phở contest.
This is gettin' excitin'!
i think specific ads are worth more per click thus the differences.
After looking at the Google AdSense website FAQ it appears that since you get a percentage of whatever google makes, maybe each advertiser is paying a different ammount to google and you get a percentage of that.
They don't disclose the percentage though, which is slightly annoying.
Thanks for the helpful words of wisdom on the Goggle ads! Very interesting, very interesting...
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