Baguette and the Vietnamese Sandwich

So this up above (thanks wikipedia), resembles my first Vietnamese sandwich, found outside of a San Francisco strip mall five years ago. For those who are culinarily challenged, you are looking at warm, marinated, medium rare beef atop a bed of cold crunchy cilantro, cucumber, mint, tomatoes, pickled onions and carrots--smothered in a spicy chili sauce, mayo, and pate (yes....you read that right....pate)--served in a crispy, baguette. My "first" was about 9 inches long and I handily consumed two of these without blinking.

When I started making my wishlist of tourist attractions for us to see in Vietnam--before the haunting limsetone karsts of Halong Bay, before the preserved body of the great Ho Chi Minh, and before the beautiful sandy beaches of Phu Quoc--I wrote "The Vietnamese Sandwich"......

Needless to say, Alicia was appalled. You might've been too, and if so, I would've referred you to the photo above.....That's right. It's beautiful looking! You want one, don't ya?

Unfortunately, this is NOT what I found in Vietnam. In the attempt to find something that came close to what I ate in San Francisco, I tried about 20 sandwiches all over Vietnam and I was saddened to discover, that the Banh Mi didn't live up to my expectations. Every Banh Mi was skimpy on meat, skimpy on vegetables, and never with that fresh, "right out of the oven" Quizno's thing.

Also, I am told that I should NOT, under any circumstance, ask 'What's in the pate?'. My instinct was to delve deeper into this for the sake of YOU, my faithful readership.....but you know what? Twenty sandwiches into this mades me want to forget this little minor detail and just move on. 

 

Here is a shot of some REAL duck pate that we had at a classic charcuterie in Hanoi. This stuff was amazing! A slice of pate, a spread of homemade mayo, and a baguette at midnight? Better than a warm glass of milk, if you ask me. Ahhhh, the French! 

So yes...disappointment. Did I just not find the right places? Was I just 60 years too late? I mean, if i was walking around Saigon in 1950 with a rotund French colonel, and I asked him to take me for a Banh Mi, would we have found something divine?

So, I dug a little. The Banh Mi originated in French colonial Vietnam, and the word Banh Mi comes from the French word pain de mie, which literally means, "bread." Presumably, the sandwich is a fusion of French ingredients (pate, mayo, and baguette) with Vietnamese herbs and marinated meats.
It turns out that the typical French incarnation of this sandwich was typically minimalist, focusing on well-made bread, accented with a small helping of beautiful pate and mayonaise. The San Fran sandwich was of .....(yikes) hoagie proportions. It made me wonder whether what I initially discovered in California was just the typical American super-size-me bastard child of the true French-inspired Banh Mi.

Upon further digging, I was appalled to discover what the western world has done to our pauvre, pauvre Banh Mi. In New Orleans, it's called a "Vietnamese po' boy". In Canada: "The Vietnamese Submarine." in Philadelphia: "The Vietnamese hoagie." These are all undoubdtedly monstrous, hedonistic, gut-busting.......EPIC SLABS OF HEAVEN!

There! The truth comes out. As fun as it has been to put myself out there in a strange country and try new flavors and textures, it is hard to shed all of my hard-wired Western ideas about food. It's shameful, but I think I just wanted more.....you know, like "Where's the beef!"

Nonetheless, there is a happy ending here, as there are a few redeeming qualities in Banh Mi:

1. Banh mi stalls are ubiquitous. There were more than a few times where I found my self weak, hypoglycemic, or just hung over. Standing on a random street corner in a random town in Vietnam, my strength failing me, I would desperately scan the streets for something to grab and shove into my face. No doubt, there was a Banh Mi stall on some corner within spitting distance.

2. The baguettes are consistently good. These are not typical French baguettes, which tend to be denser and chewier. Vietnamese baguettes are lighter and more airy, presumably because the dough is mixed with rice flour. Vietnamese baguettes are almost always still crusty and flaky on the outside. This is astounding, given the holes in the walls in which I have found these stalls, including busy interstates. I hear that many of the sandwich vendors make their own baguettes fresh at home every day.

3. They are cheap! Like 30-50 cents. Hard to argue with that.
 
 
So there you have it. I feel like this entry resembled a 'Lifetime' episode. There was a little conflict, we worked through it together, and now there's a tidy little moral to the story. Things will be a little bit messier when we talk about fish sauce, though.

Viet Herb

So, I was all set to report to you about the Vietnamese sandwich.....Well, yeah it's just bread with stuff inside but it's the bee's knees, man! Dont knock it.

Anyway, I was all set to report to you about the Vietnamese sandwich and realized that it's hard to describe one unless one understands the palate of herbs that you can find here in Vietnam. This lesson will pay dividends when I report to you on the best Pho in Vietnam, which is also accompanied by a heaping plate of greens.

After eating in Vietnam for almost three weeks, I've eaten at some crazy food stalls. Picture a glass enclosed sandwich stand in 90 degree heat, on the middle of a highway......yeah. So, inevitably, the food server has a big huge bowl of fresh greens that she divvies out to customers. Somehow, the greens are always fresh, crunchy, and popping with flavor. How? I'm not entirely sure. But I think it has something to do with the fact that Vietnam is so lush and fertile, that you can grow a papaya tree out of the asphalt on your driveway.

Vietnamese households love to gardens, but I have yet to see a garden for 'show'. No sir. Vietnamese grow food with every square acre they can find. The little rows of tender lettuce, basil, mint, cilantro are usually dead straight and completely devoid of weeks. Here is a photo of the herb garden that I visited before my cooking class....pretty typical.

The herbs are NOT just garnishing though. When you are served a bowl of soup, any self-respecting restaurant will serve you a heaping (like 7 inches high, at best) plate of herbs. The choice depends on what is available at the time, but you can usually count on basil, mint, bean sprout, and/or watercress. So, these herbs are an integral part of the flavoring.

Pitcure it: A hot, savory, comforting, fat-laden meal counteracted by cold, crisp, pungent greens. It's a winner every time.

And you thought the McDonalds invented that idea with the Mc DLT? Shame on you. So, here is a list of the herbs you may find in a typical Vietnamese meal. After reading this, you will be prepped (and hopefully amped) to hear about the Vietnamese sandwich....until next time.

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Thai basil, otherwise known as holly basil (Rau Quế) is almost always found next to a piping hot bowl of Pho. Anise/licorice lingers in your mouth if you eat this leaf raw.

Vietnamese basil (Rau Quế VietNam) tastes more like the basil one typically finds in the U.S. It has minty highlights however.

Bitter herb (Rau Dắng) doesnt have another common name reported. The leaves are small and tender and there really is a nice strong but tolerable bitter taste.

Cilantro. We all know and love this one. It is found in almost any plate of herbs.

Lemongrass (Xả) is a long, tough grass, of which the bottom 2/3 are typically eaten. The grass is sliced thinly or is shredded. There is an obvious lemony flavor, but also an earthy (dare I say grassy) flavor as well.

Sawtooth herb (Ngò Gai) is an elongated, thick, crunchy leaf that is undoubdtedly a good replacement for cilantro. I find that it is stronger than the cilantro leaf but less strong than the cilantro stem or root. This plant is orignially found in South America but has been cultivated in Asia.

Watercress (Xà Lách Son) is the same stuff we find in the U.S. It has small, round leaves, and typically gets tangled up together in the bunch. The leaves taste peppery and earthy.

Spearmint (Húng Lũi) is a tangy mint, baby.

Peppermint (Húng Cay) is a stronger taste than spearmint and tastes closer to toothpaste or a mint candy than spearmint.

Hoi An

One of the greatest thrills in Vietnam is discovering the local food enclaves across the country. Vietnam is a veritable themepark for food and every region seems to have its own specialties that you would be hard pressed to locate out of the city limits.

Hoi An is one of the standouts for local food. I mean, any town that has a Fried Wantan Mafia must have some crazy foodies living here!! Any town that uses the water from one single well to make all of their noodles must be.....as crazy as a New York City snob who has to have his precious NY bagel made exclusively from NYC water....

Hoi An is a coastal city right along the South China Sea. At one point, it was the largest point in southeast Asia, making it a dominating influence in the world's spice trade. With power and influence came wealth. With wealth, came luxuries. One of these luxuries is a rich an exciting food culture.

Due to its well preserved and maintained French colonical architecture, Hoi An is a UNESCO world heritage city ....Yet another nice side effect of French imperialism...you will see this theme over and over (baguettes, par example.....that's another blog. wait for it, wait for it.....).

Alicia and I delved into the scene with a wan tan. The wan tan is a triangle of deep fried dough. It is blistered and crispy on the outside, and just barely chewy still on the inside... A top the wantan is meat or seafood, cooked in a sweet tomato-based sauce that is accented with pineapple or mango, onions, garlic, and chile peppers. The sauce is so delicious. It is tangy, sweet, and firey hot. The diced fruits and veges are still crunchy and they are all individually accounted for on the palate.

These wan tans are obviously direct descendants of the Chinese Wanton. In this incarnation, Hoi An is the only place in Vietnam where you can find them. The crazy thing here is that one family controls the preparation and the distribution of the Wantans. I asked several restaurant and food stall owners why there was only one wantan maker and I got several variations on the same theme: 

"No. We buy from same family. We have to buy. Secret recipe in the family."

I ask the next logical question that a capitalist pig like myself might ask (dropping all the modifiers and prepositions to make my English understandable): "Why you no make your own wantan? You pay less money and you make more money." The answer was just a look. Always a slightly uneasy look.....a look little like this one:

So, we make the most obvious conclusion possible: Wan tan Mafia. We leave it at that and move on to the next dish, Cau Lau. Cau Lau is a noodle dish. But this aren't ordinary noodles. These noodles come from rice that is soaked in well water from Hoi An. There is one famous well called Well Ba Le which is the gold standard for Cau Lau, but there are other old square wells, dug several hundred years ago that suffice. The rice is pulverized into a coarse paste and made into dough. This dough is dried a bit and then ultimately cut into noodles. But these noodles are not typical slimy vermicelli noodles or pho noodles. These are coarser and a bit more chewy. Typically, marinated and roasted pork slices are placed over the noodles. The meat is marinated in a powder of peppercorns, cinnamon, star anise, ginger, and cloves--otherwise known as five spice powder (in vietnamese kitchens, this is as ubiquitous as salt and pepper in the US).

I know, right? Sounds amazing. But wait, there's more. A meat stock is poured very sparingly into a bowl of noodles--just a few tablespoons worth-- and the grilled meat is added. The dish is topped with fresh herbs and aromatics, such as chives, cilantro, mint, or bean sprouts. To the right is my cau lau made with marinated beef. The beef was grilled perfectly, and the steam coming out of the bowl smelled sweet and rich. What I loved the most about it was that it clearly wasn't a soup--it was clearly meant to be eaten with chop sticks--but you got this added bonus of a meat stock that clearly helped all the flavours mix well.

Next, we tried White Rose dumplings, banh bao vac, which are typical chinese dumplings with shrimp and/or chicken inside. They resemble what you would typically get at a Dim Sum restaurant. They are usualy topped with deep fried shallot slices. You can dip them into ngoc muom, the "ketchup" of Vietnam--fish sauce with sugar and chile slices. To the right is what white rose dumplings look like. I didn't think they were anything special--they tasted like fresh, mild flavored chinese dumplings.

All of the action in Hoi An goes down in the food stalls or street markets. Of course, you can get upmarket versions of these dishes in restaurants, but I highly doubt they are any tastier. Here is a photo of the market in which we ate: It is actually the "Economy Plus" section of the street scene. You pay a bit more for the ambience and for someone to serve you the food, but it is only a few cents more expensive than eating on the street.

Here is a video of me trying my first beef in banana leaf at the same set of food stalls. We met a fun Australian guy here who came on holiday 6 weeks ago, met a Vietnamese woman, and married her within two weeks. Mostly, I put this video in here so that you could see how fun it is to eat crazy new foods. I will probably discuss this dish in another entry, but since it isn't a typical Hoi An food, I wont talk about it here. Enjoy!