Bánh mì heaven

After almost two weeks in Saigon I realized that I had not eaten a Banh Mi sandwich.  I have walked by hundreds of these small and not so small eateries here in the city.  I have been stuffing my face with all of these new foods and trying to test my limits I forgot to get some of my Vietnamese comfort food.   My friend Tai left yesterday but he did not leave me empty handed.  I now have a small but knowledgeable English-speaking group of people to call on and eat with.  I arranged to go with Tai's friend to his favorite Banh Mi place.  This place is about 15 minutes out of the city on a busy bit of road.  A common scene on these roads is that their will be one successful business and literally next door will be a place that has replicated the sign and the type of sandwich verbatim but not the taste.  When we pulled up and my friend was putting away his bike I walked into the wrong one because the two stores looked exactly the same only to be called back to this one that you see in the picture.

I asked my friend to order a dac biet (special) sandwich.  I received a pork lovers dream.  The sandwich came with two kinds of pork plus all of the usual fixings such as cucumber, pickled daikon and carrot, cilantro, mayo, and the secret ingredient maggi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggi) seasoning.  I threw a couple of chilies to heat mine up and dug in.  Chewy and bursting with flavor it immediately set me straight and I devoured it in minutes.  First one down.  It was if I had lifted a dam on my taste buds and I now had an insatiable need for more.   

Then next morning I set off to another spot that had been recommended to me. Nhu Lan occupies an entire corner and is across the street from the tallest building in Vietnam.  I ordered another pork sandwich but this time it came from a spit and was sweet and savory.  More like Chinese pork.  Although it was twice as expensive at about one US dollar it was worth the price.  The bread was better and the filling was spot on.  I sipped an addictive avocado shake and watched the rainfall.  Nhu Lahn may make many scoff at the price but I think the quality of the fillings make up for it.  It’s got to pay for that real estate some how.