Banh Mi: The Other Pho

Back Home, Banh Mi (bun me) is all the rage. It's also as Americanized as egg foo young. Some nice sweet pickled radish and carrot, a slab of gristly pork or chicken (or my favorite, boiled chicken), hold the pate please.


Not like here at all. It's usually made from a tiny portable sandwich shop (or a barrel) on the street, but it's a complicated affair with many ingredients. There seems to be some order to how it's constructed, but no part of the sandwich is the same. On one side you may have a processed pork product, followed by some fatty thing or lard paste, a cucumber and bland/ briny radish in the center, and then some deep raspberry-colored pate. Some parts are actually tasty, but they are all strange to Western tongues. Each bite is like uncomfortably settling into a cold bath, followed by a feeling of relief that it's over.