I use this concentrate as the base for my soups. I find it flavorful and easy to use. If I am making traditional pho, I add onions, garlic, veggies, roast beef, noodles, bean sprouts, thai basil, hoisin, and sriracha sauce. If I'm making Italian soups, I add tomatoes, garlic, oregano, beans, and sausage. It's a wonderful and versatile building block item and a pantry standard in my kitchen.

Good product

This pho concentrate is really good! I recommend this to anyone looking to make pho at home "quickly". Is it as good as pho at many noodle shops, no. Is it as good as making pho from scratch at home, no. It is flavorful and smells great, and really shines when used as a base.
My first time I tried this, I followed the instructions and didn't know if I'd finish the box I got. The second time I tried adding a couple of things, still pretty mediocre. I have made pho from scratch and don't have the space or time to do that and really wanted to like this, so I decided to "almost" make beef pho from scratch and I found the secret to this concentrate. What I did was add 5-6 meatballs to 2 cups water, add in some garlic and onion powder, ground pepper, ground cinnamon, a couple star anise, chopped up ginger, chopped up hot pepper, and a little salt. Bring it to a boil and add the concentrate, then keep it at a low boil for about an hour. Remove the meatballs then add a little water and bring back to medium boil, throw in the noodles. When the noodles are done, pour it into a bowl with the meatballs. Done. I found that by simmering the meat and adding flavors that I wanted, the base flavors come out more. The broth is thicker, more like the real thing, infused with tasty fat from the meat. The amount of work may sound like a lot, but it is much easier than doing it all from scratch, and tastes nearly as good. Think of this as a beef stock and work with it as such, you probably won't be disappointed.
I have to assume anyone buying this much has already tried it, or can not find it in a store near them. If you fall in the latter category, and want some darn good pho at home and are willing to dress it up a bit, go for it if you love pho as much as I do.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some meatballs to remove.

Great base for Pho. Just add your own rice noodles, bean sprouts, fresh basil,spices and meat. This is well seasoned. Just follow directions. I make it often.

I didnt buy it on here, I bought it from WorldMarket (at the store). To be honest, to really get that authentic flavor u can't just throw this in the pot with water alone. It is a good BASE to start with so u dont have to cook it for 6-8hrs...What I did was use 2 packets of it in a big pot of water (4liters? i dunno i just filled the biggest pot I had that comes standard in those cooking sets), then I also cooked beef shanks (bone in) in it because I didn't want to drive to another asian market to get the right meat. *Before adding the packets w/ the beef shanks, I cooked the beef shanks in a pot of cold water that covered them then waited for it to boil. After the boil, I let it cook for 10mins on med/low heat and then poured all the water out take get rid off the residual meat stuff.* Then I refilled the pot with cold water almost all the way up with the beef in it, put the 2 packets, waited for it to boil again and then turned it down for an hour. BTW before I refilled the pot with cold water, I wiped it down to take out the meat residual on the pan... Additionally to the cold water and beef shanks, I added in 2 star anise pods, half an onion (just like it is) and a cinnamon stick. Ginger if you want, I had to use ground ginger cuz i didn't have any on hand. The Star anise, onion, and cinn stick are just in there for flavor, after an hour or so you can take those out..your meat should be tender and then its ready to eat. I took my beef shank out and cut it into little pieces, added to a big bowl with the pho noodles (previously boiled real quick), cilantro, green onions, thai basil, bean sprouts, and squeeze of lime. You can add hoisin sauce and siracha or whatever else to make it how u want. It seems like trouble to do all that but to me it was worth it =)