5 Must-Try BANH MI Sandwiches - Intro to Vietnamese Food | HONEYSUCKLE

Hey Busy Bees! Today I thought it would be fun to share with you 5 Banh Mi sandwiches that you need to try. I recently got a comment on my channel asking for an intro to Vietnamese food and I thought that was such a great idea that I need to show you guys my favorite Vietnamese food which is the Banh Mi sandwich. Of course every deli makes it a little bit different but these are the basics that you'll find in almost all Vietnamese deli joints. If you guys like Vietnamese sandwiches or Vietnamese food in general be sure to give this video a thumbs up and please don't forget to subscribe to my channel and I'll go ahead and get started. Okay so first off what makes a Vietnamese sandwich so special I think is the bread. The bread is made out of rice flour and it doesn't have as much gluten as your normal like French baguette so it's light, airy, and crispy. So every time I bite into it you get like flakes of the outer crust just falling out. I know it gets a little bit messy but that just adds to the whole experience where it's nice and crunchy but inside it's light and fluffy and just so delicate. It's almost like I would say bouncy. I want to say that texture. I've actually tried making my own French baguette before like the Vietnamese sandwich baguette and it is like the hardest thing to do. You guys should search YouTube and see how they make it but it's definitely something that you need to master. So I thought you know what there's Vietnamese delis all over near me so let's just go buy them. They sell them for like 3 for a dollar so don't waste your time making it. If you can find it definitely just go buy it. Second of all what makes it really special are the accoutrement that goes into it. So here we have pickled daikon carrots which is essential. It gives it a little bit of a crunch as well as a slight sweetness and sour tang to the sandwich. I just love it. Every time I order a Vietnamese sandwich I always ask for extras. And then we have cilantro. Cilantro is an acquired taste. Some people love it, some people hate it. My brother in law hates it. He says it tastes like soap but I can't have a Vietnamese sandwich or any Vietnamese food for that matter without cilantro. It really adds to the experience. And then we have some sliced jalapeno. These jalapenos have been deseeded so that they just give a nice crunch. Sometimes a spicy crunch but since it's been deseeded it's not super spicy. There was one time where Nate actually bit into a sandwich that they did not deseed the jalapeno and all he could taste for the rest of the meal was the spiciness. His tongue was just numb. It was pretty hilarious actually. But just make sure whenever you get a Vietnamese sandwich make sure that it's deseeded because you don't want that same experience. And then they also have some sliced white onions here. They kind of scrimped on me a little bit but that's okay. I don't love white onions like raw white onions as much so I'm okay with the amount that they gave me. But yeah, these are the items that add that extra crunch and extra flavor to the Vietnamese sandwich. Alright so let's get into our first sandwich which is the ham and pate. Also known as banh mi thịt ngôi. Here is the banh mi thịt ngôi which is a ham and pate sandwich. This is the classic one that I grew up eating. Ever since I could remember, I think I was 7 or 8. That was around the time where I started learning how to play the piano. And let me tell you how that ties into it. Every Friday night was my piano lesson. And right before going to class, it was at 6 o'clock every Friday evening. What a way for my parents to spend their Friday evenings, right? They would take us to downtown San Jose to this really famous Vietnamese deli and we would get banh mis for dinner. And I would always get this one because it was just so flavorful. They always try to get me to eat, it's called circle meat. We call it circle meat in our family but it's called cha lua which is pretty much like, I guess you would call it just like a pork loaf in Vietnamese. But it's kind of white and it's easy for kids to eat. So that's why they always try to push it on me but I said no. I actually do not like cha lua at all. So I always went for this one because I love pate. So what's in here is a layer of pate, mayo, and then you have this interesting thing called head cheese. What is head cheese, you guys ask? Well, it's basically the head of a pig that they kind of compress together to make like a jelly. It's kind of like a terrine and it's really delicious. I know it sounds crazy but it's really, really good and I remember at a young age, I already ate that. So if you guys are not adventurous, remember I had this when I was 7 so you guys should definitely try it. But it's just so delicious. And these sandwiches, let me talk to you about the pricing as well. Back in the day when I was 7, these sandwiches used to cost 75 cents and slowly it got to $1, $1.25 and now inflation, 20 something years later, a little more than that, it's like $4. It's like 400%, 500%. But it's so worth it. I always love getting this and you guys, the funny thing is I didn't get to eat this for almost 10 months when I was pregnant and the first thing that I did, I had my list of things that I wanted to eat so it was poke, it was this thing called an aki swirl which I haven't gotten it yet. It's just like a margarita but since I'm breastfeeding, I'm trying to not drink as much. But this sandwich was one of the top 10 items on my list to get and I did get it last week which was so amazing and that's why I decided to share with you guys this whole spread. Of course, it would not be a honeysuckle episode if I didn't give it a try so let's give it a try. You really taste the pate in here and it's kind of spicy because of all the black peppers but then the crunch of the pickled daikon and carrot just kind of cools it down. This one is hands down my favorite of all time. I will never get a different vonmi sandwich if I were to go grab something for lunch. It'll always be this one. Alright, now moving on to the second one which is something that I think a lot of newbies to Vietnamese sandwiches might like. It's grilled shredded chicken. Grilled shredded chicken? What is that? Well basically, it's just a marinated chicken that they grilled and then they cut it into small pieces or they shred them. Again, this one has the pickled daikon carrots, the jalapenos. This one actually does not have the pate in it. It's just a layer of mayo and then all the accoutrements so it's very simple. What I saw them add is also like a soy sauce or also Maggi sauce which adds a lot of flavor to it. So in San Jose, different places make the grilled chicken sandwich a little bit different. There's another deli in San Jose on Story Road which is like Little Saigon that makes the best grilled chicken sandwich that I really love but they don't have any of like the daikon carrots, the cilantro and jalapenos. They add cucumbers and tomatoes and it gives it a nice crunch with some onions in there. I'll be sure to link where that place is in the description box below if you guys are interested in checking that out if you're in the Bay Area. The flavor of the chicken is very lightly seasoned. It's almost like a soy sauce seasoning. Very light. This one is very mild in terms of flavor. I like it but if you guys are new to the banh mi world, I think you should definitely try this one to kind of ease yourself into the more adventurous ones. Okay, next up is probably the most popular one of all. It's the banh mi thit nuong which is the grilled pork sandwich. So thit nuong is really widely used in Vietnamese dishes. So you have it in the noodle salad, you have it here, you have it on the kebabs, rice dishes. It goes with pretty much anything and it's so delicious. I actually made a recipe video on how to make banh mi thit nuong, the grilled pork sandwich, back in 2012 when I first got started with YouTube so be sure to check that out. It's like a throwback video. I'll link it at the end card later on. The thit nuong is typically marinated with fish sauce, thick soy sauce, and it has a really nice charcoal-y flavor to it that I really like too. This is probably my second go-to banh mi sandwich if I don't have the ham and pate when available. Because not every deli makes it the same and I'm pretty picky about that. So I only order it here but if I were to go to a different deli that I'm not familiar with, I'll probably go with this one. Just because you can't go wrong with it. Let's give it a try. The grilled pork is quintessential Vietnamese food to me. It just has that classic charcoal-y flavor and paired with the banh mi and all the other toppings, it's really, really good. You can't go wrong. Next one is also a barbecue pork but this one is a char siu which is like a Chinese barbecue pork that's very different from the Vietnamese ones. This one is marinated with Chinese five spice and it has that beautiful crust of red around the pork. It's just so pretty to look at. Typically you will find char siu at Chinese barbecue joints and it has a really interesting flavor. It has like anise flavor, sesame oil, some hoisin in the marinade. It has a very earthy, hearty taste to it. And I love how inventive that they add it to a Vietnamese banh mi sandwich. It's kind of like a fusion cross between Chinese food and Vietnamese food. It's quite delicious. I remember my mom used to make me char siu or Chinese barbecue pork sandwiches to bring to school lunches and I was kind of always embarrassed because everyone else had the typical like ham and cheese and here I am eating like weird barbecue pork sandwiches. But you know what? Back then I was young and naive. Now I'm like, heck yeah, I will take this over ham and cheese any day. That was really delightful and I love how thinly sliced the barbecue pork was. It kind of reminds me of the first one, which is a ham and pate without the pate and the ham is a little bit more mild than the char siu. This one has a lot more flavor to it. Should definitely try this out too. Oh, and one thing, I know I keep saying Vietnamese banh mi sandwich, which is basically saying sandwich sandwich or bread sandwich. Banh mi means bread in Vietnamese, but in English it's translated to a Vietnamese banh mi sandwich. Banh mi kind of terms it as like this whole sandwich with all the fixins inside. So that's how they kind of coined banh mi in America, but at home we would just call it banh mi. So, or banh mi o, which is like a banh mi baguette, which is also kind of a double termed as well. But how would you guys call this? I know, I know I might get a little bit of hate for this, but I just wanted to clear things up just so you guys know that this is just how we say it here. But let's just go on to our last one for our vegetarian friends. Here we have banh mi bê chai, which is basically, in Vietnamese culture or Asian culture, they like to make tofu to mimic meat products. So bê is like shredded pork and pork skin, which is really delicious, but here they took tofu and they kind of replicated the flavors in a vegetarian way. I really like it because it kind of has its own unique flavor. It tastes nothing like bê chai other than kind of the texture that kind of looks like it. I actually prefer the bê chai to normal pork and shredded skin. Just eating skin kind of, I don't really like the texture too much. But there's a favorite restaurant I go to with my friends for lunch and instead of ordering the meat noodle salad, I always get their vegetarian one with the bê chai in there because it's so good. So this one is also very delicious. If you are looking for something lighter and don't feel like eating meat, know that there's tofu in here so you do still get protein, but it still has a lot of flavor. So I'm gonna dig in. The texture is a little bit more dry and they use like vegetarian seasonings and in here, in particular for this one, I noticed that they roasted rice and then they ground it down. It's called tin. And it adds a lot of seasoning and just flavor to it, kind of that earthy, very robust tones to it. It's really good. It's very unique. So if you guys like like roasted rice flavor, this is where it's at. So you guys, I kind of wanted to try something new because I'm always making recipe videos but there's so much delicious food out there that people sell and I can't always make everything and I don't know how. So I thought I'd still want to share with you my love of food and delicious foods out there so you guys could learn about it as well. Tell me what you think about these types of videos in the comments below and thank you so much for watching. If you guys, like I said, if you guys are interested in making your own Vietnamese banh mi sandwich, I have a video on that and I will link it at the end. But to pair with my Vietnamese sandwiches, I love pairing it with cafe soda, which is Vietnamese iced coffee. I also have a video for that so I will link it there. But when you go into a Vietnamese deli, they have all of these things like either separately or together. They have cafe soda, they have chè, which is like a coconut-y dessert and they'll probably have like ten different kinds out that you can choose from. I made one a long time ago as well called chè thai, which is like a jackfruit lychee combination with half and half and coconut milk. It's just so delicious. So I will also link that at the end if you guys want to see. I've made a lot of Vietnamese food in the past and for all of you new viewers, I definitely want to share those old videos with you so be sure to check them out. Yeah, so I hope you guys like this video. Again, let me know if you want to see more of these types and what kind of cuisines you'd like me to share. Thank you so much and cảm ơn for watching. Cảm ơn. Xin chào. Bye guys. See you next Sunday.