Vietnam
is the spiritual home of porky goodness and you haven’t eaten a Vietnamese pork
roll until you’ve eaten one in the town of Hoi An, according to Traveller.
Hoi
An is home to famous burgers and a stay in the town will spoil your banh mi eating for life: nothing will
ever compare. “It is the bread, crusty on the outside, soft and fluffy on the
inside,” Traveller wrote.
“It’s
the fillings, the pickled green papaya, the herbs, the mix of pork cuts, the
homemade farmhouse pate. And it’s the secret chili sauce.”
The
site also recommended addresses selling the best banh mi in town: Madam Khanh - the Banh Mi Queen (115 Tran Cao Van
Street), who it says lives up to her billing, and Banh Mi Phuong (2B Phan Chu
Trinh Street), which has Hoi An’s best pork roll.
Banh mi is tasty everywhere in Vietnam,
not just Hoi An. Earlier this year, it was selected as one of the best street
food in the world by the UK’s Rough Guides.
Last
year, together with pho and bun cha (rice noodles with grilled pork), banh mi was listed among the world’s Top
100 most delicious food by the World Records Union (Worldkings).
Banh mi is found literally everywhere. It
was street food long before street food became an obsession.
Readily
available, convenient, and a bargain at VND10,000-25,000 (about a dollar), banh mi is now the most common breakfast
in the country.
It
can also be a yummy midday meal or even dinner for those too busy to cook at
home and it also makes a nice change from rice.
Based
on various ingredients and eating habits, banh
mi tastes different in different parts of Vietnam. But there are some
commonalities.
The
“classic” banh mi appeared a few
decades ago and though many have brainstormed a better baguette the original
still stands strong.
Fillings
include roast pork, grilled chicken, or beef meatballs together with homemade
pate, cured ham, shredded pork, cheese, thin layers of radish and carrot,
slices of cucumber, a generous sprinkling of cilantro leaves, and pepper and
chili sauce mixed with a little mayonnaise.
It
might sound as though everything lying around is used, but it strangely blends
together in a delectable way.
Another
type of banh mi now popular is pure
bread served with French-style beef au vin.
The
savory beef mixed with spices and especially wine goes perfectly with the
bread, especially on winter days.
A
typical banh mi in the northern city
of Hai Phong is Banh mi Que (breadsticks) or banh mi cay (spicy baguettes).
As
the former’s name suggests, it’s small and long like a stick and has simple
fillings of homemade pate and some hot chili. It’s available from street carts
at a dirt-cheap VND5,000 (25 cents) for a super-fast snack that quietens a
rumbling stomach.
Whatever
type you may eat you’re sure to have a moment of heaven from each bite into a
well-stacked banh mi that is at once
crunchy, soft, aromatic, spicy, salty, sour, sweet, and savory.
By VN Economic
Times