French bread appears all over the city here, from which of course those great Vietnamese sandwiches get made. Our first one featured a slice of pork sizzling in its own lard (evil grin) on a hot plate together with some pate. Shove all of that into some bread that was delightfully lighter than air, and mmm...enough said.
The quality of that bread unfortunately raised the bar so high that we were a bit disappointed when we hit a shop down on Ham Nghi, where several loaves of bread were on display. We grabbed a basic banh mi thit, whose bread was quite a bit more dense and thus less less inspiring. Still, the stuffings of pate, cilantro, and chili peppers kept things going, and one can't exactly complain at only 10,000 Dong (US$0.75).
4 comments:
Hi travelling hungryboy,
May I know where I can find that sizzling plate of bahn mi that you got?
That was just a random place across from Saigon Square, but those things are quite common. Just look for a place that serves "beefsteak." There's a Vietnamese name for it (is it bit tek?), but it's definitely a foreign influence.
My local colleague just offered some clarity on this. It's called bit tet, and it's actually *not* meant to be a sandwich. In fact, the bread is optional, and even if it's given, it's just meant to be bread on the side. The main focus is the meat on the sizzling hot platter itself.
I guess I should have separated it from the banh mi post and put that one out there on its own
Hi travelling hungryboy, thanks for the clarification. Will be flying there tomorrow and will be really keen to try out the street food, provided I have an iron stomach to see through my vacation there.
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