Yes, but like all soups throughout the world's cuisines, it has its own uniqueness as well as commonalities with other soups.
To start, you must have a soup base, which is water and whatever you chose to cook in the water. Phở with beef is made with beef bones, often ox tails. Then add assorted spices. The broth is cooked just like other soups -- over hours. Get as much flavors out of the bone marrow and spices as possible.
To serve, first put in the bowl the noodles, bean sprouts, onion garnishes, mint leaves, and thinly sliced beef. If the beef is raw, once you pour in the hot broth, the beef will be cooked thru. Or you can put in fully cooked beef. Personally, I prefer raw beef. But the broth is the last thing to put in the bowl. From this point on, after you mixed everything up in the broth, you can add in other spices and/or hot sauce to taste. Each person is different.
The broth is what will make or break the meal. If the cook does not know what he/she is doing, then the broth could be greasy or too thin. In either case, if the diner is a first timer, he/she will be turned off, possibly forever. This is why it is important to take the first timer to a known good Vietnamese restaurant, or if you know how, cook the meal yourself. Phở is regular in my house. I cook it every two weeks for yrs. My Chilean G/F loves it, so does my neighbors. The big pot never last more than one day.
There is another soup prominent in Vietnamese cuisine. Hủ Tiếu is related to Phở but spicier.
http://www.lovingpho.com/pho-opinion-editorial/hu-tieu-noodles-and-hu-tieu-soup-noodle-dish/
I like my Hủ Tiếu extra spicy.
