In an article of BBC Travel, reporter David Farley expressed that Vietnam's bread fascinated him the most, compared to other which he had ever eaten in his life.
"The cab driver stopped on the
bustling boulevard Pho Hue and pointed at a mishmash of incongruent four and
five-story buildings across the street. I hopped out and dodged buzzing
motorbikes and exhaust-belching cars, trying to get from curb to curb.
Then I spotted it: Banh Mi Pho Hue
(118 Phố Huế; 84-4-3822-5009), the no-frills sandwich shop named for the Hanoi
street on which it sits. Nearly everyone I’d asked had said Banh Mi Pho Hue
served the tastiest bread in Hanoi. But the family that’s run the shop since
1974 has a reputation for closing it whenever the cooks run out of ingredients.
So when I arrived at 7pm on a Saturday and found it still open, I was
delighted.
Translated simply as “wheat,” the
banh mi is a delicious and ever-varying combination of deli-style pork, pate
and veggies (think carrots, cilantro, cucumber, etc), stuffed into a soft and
crunchy French baguette. Regional variations in Vietnam involve adding headcheese, pork sausage
and various other vegetables.
In an age of hipster food mashups –
Korean tacos, anyone? – the banh mi is the product of a true cultural and
culinary blend. No food trucks, Instagram photos or tweets led to its creation.
The sandwich began with colonialism – specifically, the establishment of French
Indochina in 1887 – when the occupying French simply slathered butter and pate
inside a baguette. Then when the Vietnamese sent the French packing in 1954,
they put their own spin on the sandwich, adding slices of pork, herbs and
pickled vegetables, and creating the banh mi as we know it.
The rest of the world didn’t learn
about this spectacular sandwich until after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
As many southern Vietnamese emigrated to the United States, Europe
and Australia, they brought recipes, including one
for their iconic sandwich. As a result, if you’re eating a banh mi outside of
Vietnam, you’re probably enjoying a southern-style snack: the baguettes are
generally bigger and they’re crammed with more veggies and herbs, such as
cilantro, carrots and hot peppers.
Oddly, the banh mi has always been
the one kind of food I liked better outside its home turf. When I tried a banh
mi in Ho Chi Minh City a few years earlier, I’d found the bread stale and the
ingredients skimpy; inside was a paltry mix of a few slices of ham, a smear of
pate and flaccid cilantro and carrots. I gave up after one sandwich. I’d had
far better banh mi in New York city even Minneapolis! Was I crazy?
Could the banh mi outside of Vietnam actually be better? Now back in
Vietnam, I was determined to find out the truth. Would my faith in the banh mi
in its homeland be restored? Is the banh mi the best sandwich in the world?
At Banh Mi Pho Hue, Geoffrey Deetz – a chef and Vietnamese food expert who’s been living in the country for nearly 15 years – was peppering the sandwich maker with questions about ingredients. Meanwhile, I’d just been served my banh mi, partially covered with piece of white paper affixed with a rubber band.
I pulled back a side of the baguette
to get a look at the ingredients: pork deli meat, fatty char siu pork, pork
floss, creamy pate, Chinese 5 spice and, curiously, butter. The sandwich
maker finished it off by pouring pork-chili gravy inside. Interestingly, I saw
none of the herbs and veggies that spill out of the baguettes served in
southern Vietnam or outside of the country.
“The banh mi sandwiches in Hanoi are
much more one dimensional than other parts of the country,” Deetz told me. “If
you gave someone here the kind of over-stuffed, herb-laden sandwich you’ve
eaten in other parts of the country, they’d probably throw up.”
Happily, I didn’t throw up. This
banh mi was radically different, true. But it was just as good as the
sandwiches I’d eaten elsewhere. The crunch of bread was followed by an
interplay of porky goodness with a slight kick of spice. It was more like
a meat sandwich. I loved it.
“They don’t really like overly
complex food in Hanoi,” Deetz added. “But so many things in here have a
function: the pork floss soaks up the sauce, the pate adds moisture and the
fact that the baguette is lightly toasted keeps it from getting soggy in this
immense humidity.”
A banh mi vendor on a boat in Vietnam. (Jupiter Images/Getty)
While in Vietnam, I also tried a
banh mi in Hoi An, a Unesco World Heritage-designated city on the central
coast. In a region known for fertile soil and vibrant herbs, it’s no surprise
the sandwiches there are stuffed with verdant vegetables.
As I did in Hanoi, I asked everyone
who would listen where I could find the best banh mi around. The answer was
Banh Mi Phuong (Phan Chau Trinh 2B) a diminutive shop in the centre of town. I
ordered the classic, which the menu board indicated contained “bread, pork,
ham, pate”. But there was so much more: long slices of cucumber, fresh
cilantro, pickled carrot and even juicy tomato slices. Phoung finished it off
with a flurry of sauces: a squirt of chili sauce and two different pork sauces,
one from boiled pork and one from smoked pork.
The key to a good banh mi is, in
fact, the bread. A bad baguette – a hard, crumbly log – will ruin an otherwise
fine sandwich. Phuong’s bread, baked right next door, was ultra-soft, almost
deflating when I took a bite, while also maintaining a crispy exterior. Top
that (literally) with high-quality pork, two different pork-based sauces and a
few surprises like tomato and pickled papaya and I had a very good sandwich in
my hands.
All told, I sampled about 15 banh mi
sandwiches over two weeks in Vietnam. Happily, I’d eaten some of the best
sandwiches I’d ever had. That banh mi I tried in Saigon a few years ago – the
one that turned me off to the sandwich for a while – was just a fluke.
Something that combines so much pork
with fresh herbs all stuffed into a crispy baguette is, I have to say, a pretty
magical sandwich. "
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