Slurping at Pho Viet 1 is not just OK; it’s expected.

The family-run Vietnamese restaurant, which took over a vacated Pizza Hut just north of The Citadel mall late last year, is a pho place specializing in big, steaming bowls of beef broth swimming with a tangled Sargasso of rice noodles.

With a small, shallow spoon and  chopsticks, there is no way to tackle the pho without long, stringy noodles dangling from you mouth. But with the rich fragrance of light beef broth spiked with star anise, ginger, clove and other Asian spices, it is impossible not to dive in recklessly anyway. So slurp it in. Let it dangle. Enjoy yourself. Look around and you will see the largely Asian clientèle doing the same.

Pho (pronounced “fuh”) is the classic fast food of Vietnam — delicious, filling, fun and cheap. The foundation is a French onion soup base of boiled beef bones and browned onions, introduced by colonial rulers in the 1800s. But the other building blocks are distinctly Vietnamese. The broth is simmered for hours with roasted ginger and onion, maybe some coriander and cinnamon, a little cardamon and fennel, then swirled with laces of fresh onion and slender rings of scallion.

To this mix can be added all sorts of things: tender and familiar steak, sliced brisket or meatballs and “ewww”-inducing tendon and tripe. (In the interest of journalism, I have tried them all, and there is not much to recommend either tendon or tripe unless you are desperate for a new texture.)

A safe place to start at Pho Viet 1 is the Pho Tai (Beef noodle soup with thin slices of flank steak), which at lunch is an astoundingly reasonable $4. For most people, a small is plenty. I have never finished a medium. I have never even seen anyone order a large.

Before the bowl arrives, filled to the brim and billowing steam, the server will bring a tray of sprouts, Thai basil, cilantro, sliced jalapeño and lime. This is to soup up the soup. Jars and bottles of fish sauce, hoisin sauce and chili garlic sauce crowd the table. This is also to soup up the soup.

How you soup up the soup is up to you. There is a lot of idiosyncratic ritual that goes into blending the perfect pho. Some say hoisin and chili sauce are only for dipping on the side. Others say add them to the soup. Some warn to dole out seasonings slowly as you eat. Others say you should only sip until you have the mix just right, then dig in. Rest assured, there is no wrong way to do it.

With spoon in one hand and chopsticks in the other, I start by slurping the scalding broth to see what it needs. At Pho Viet 1, the flavor is mellow and rich, with less anise and cinnamon than the really good phos. It needs dressing up. I pinch a lime over the broth and follow it with a healthy squirt of Sriracha chili garlic sauce, then take another slurp. I add a shot of dark, salty hoisin and pluck a half-dozen leaves of basil and cilantro, and let them flurry over the surface. I slurp again. It’s ready. I fish in with chopsticks, chasing after thin medallions of flank steak.

At the really good places (Such as Pho 79 in Denver), the steak is served raw and you watch it slowly pink up as you drop it in the scalding broth. Here it arrives in the soup already gray, but moist and tasty.

I dredge up tangles of noodles and chomp at them, trying to sever the dripping flapper’s fringe hanging from my mouth before anyone notices, but as I look up from where I am hunched over my bowl, I see almost everyone else doing the same.

As I eat I add more basil, more cilantro and more chili sauce, until the broth is brick red. It is food that takes work to eat, like artichokes or hot wings. Because of that, it’s food that is good for conversation. Your mouth is not always full.

Most people don’t finish their pho broth. That’s OK. It’s meant as a medium as much as part of the meal.

Though most people order the soup, the menu holds other things — many of them worth trying. You’ll find the ubiquitous Vietnamese noodle bowls tossed with sprouts, lettuce, cucumber, shredded carrot and various kinds of grilled meats. But the kitchen also whips up some stand-outs. A stir-fry chicken noodle bowl ($7) is heaped with tender chicken breast sautéed in a light, alluring coat of peanut, scallion and lemon grass.

Service is dependable and fast. Prices make Pho Viet 1 a real value, especially at lunch. The offerings are all solid.

The only thing that could use improvement is the dining room. It has changed little from the Pizza Hut days. Some of my best bowls of pho have been in very humble venues. But the ventilation has not been updated either, and while it was probably adequate for the Pizza Hut oven, it can’t handle the smoke of this Vietnamese kitchen. That’s too bad, because it is no fun to spend the rest of the day smelling like a deep-fat fryer.

PHO VIET 12 STARS out of 5(A good value)

Address: 3712 Galley RoadPhone: 597-6559Hours: 10 a.m.-9 p.m. dailyEntrees: $4-$11Vegetarian: YesAlcohol: No

These are the ingredients for pho at Viet Pho 1, before the broth is added. By the time the bowl hits your table, everything will be hot and ready to eat. Photo by JERILEE BENNETT, THE GAZETTE