Vietnam is one of the few places on earth that you can eat a sandwich whose prime ingredient is roasted pork skin and feel virtuous for doing so. Banh mi bi must rate as one of the world’s perfect sandwiches: crispy pork skin with a luscious hint of creamy fat, perfectly balanced with a tart pickle, streetside mayonnaise, shredded spring onions and red hot chilli; all contained within an hours-old mini-baguette. It’s a world ahead of your average pâté-packed banh mi, if only because the meat tastes like it came from a very happy swine. To double the meat pleasure, Tiem Banh Gia Phat on Phan Dinh Phung street in Da Lat topped it off with pork floss, a meat condiment that is in my estimate, second only to bacon.
The only reason that I picked Tiem Banh Gia Phat was for their surgically clean banh cart. It looked like somewhere that with a tray of scalpels could double as a roadside operating theatre. The bakery out the back also seemed to do a vigorous trade in Vietnamese simulations of French patisserie.
Price: 8000VND (US$0.50)
This looks delicious! Nice shot!
ngon ghe ha…..them qua’……….
Sorry, Sun, my Vietnamese only extends to the word “ngon”.
Yum!
Is there any shop in the Footscray area that you could suggest that does a good imitation of what you had?