Over the past several months, I've been periodically making batches of pho broth, trying different things in an attempt to get somewhere near the flavor of the broth at the good local restaurants. With the huge variation in recipes I found online, it was difficult to come up with a good starting point, especially since many of the ingredients are things I had little or no experience with. After a lot of reading, I thought I had identified the common elements and had a good understanding of how they worked together, but the more I try, the further I seem to get away from the target. So we have bones, meat, aromatics and spices. My current formula is: 6lb beef leg/knuckle bones 3lb chuck roast 2 yellow onions 2x 3" pieces ginger 3x 3" pieces cassia bark 8 whole star anise 8 whole cloves 10 black cardamom pods 1 tbsp black peppercorns 2oz chunk yellow rock sugar 1 tbsp sea salt Boil the bones. Slice the onions and ginger in half lengthwise and put them under the broiler for about 15 minutes total, turning half-way. Smash the ginger good. Add the bones, meat, onions, ginger, sugar and salt, and 7qt water and simmer for 6 hours or more. Then toast the spices for 2-3 minutes in a pan, and thoroughly crush the cardamom pods. Put them in an infuser and drop it in the broth, simmer for another 30 minutes. Then strain and cool overnight, and defat the next day. I add about 1 tbsp fish sauce to each bowl when I reheat it. And while the broth smells very aromatic when it is simmering and when reheating it, it just lacks the spice flavor and even aroma of the restaurant stuff in the bowl. I would have thought MSG, but even the smell of the restaurant broth is 10x as potent. I've learned a lot from trial and error. Biggest thing is that the flavor of the spices evaporates out over time, which is why I now add the spices only for the last 30 minutes - maybe that's still too long or not long enough, or possibly the various spices take different amounts of time to release their flavors. Or something else I just considered last time around - maybe just reheating it to a full boil is evaporating off most of the flavors from the spices (next time around, I plan to try tasting it as it finishes simmering, before it cools and needs to be reheated). Aside from the lack of spice, the broth is very beefy, and with the noodles, garnish, and meat, my homemade pho blows away the restaurant stuff in every other category. Seems like I'm close but need a breakthrough to get the rest of the way there.