Pho is so familiar to Hanoians that it could be seen in almost every street in the capital city. The noodle soup is typically associated with the capital city, as the late Vietnamese writer Thach Lam made clear in one of his works in the 1930s on local cuisine:"Pho is a specialty of Hanoi. You can taste it in other places. But the pho is better in Hanoi than anywhere else."