a symphony of a sandwich
Lene Kemps fillets a culinary hotspot.
Feel free to call the banh mi a Vietnamese smos, even if that does the culinary and historical dishonor. You don’t have to be a historian to see a lasting effect of 19th-century French colonization in the combination of Asian siege and a baguette. Of course the French brought coffee, cheese and baguettes to their protectorate. And they expected the bread to be baked perfectly there too. But the grain harvest, not so good in the tropical climate, so the Vietnamese traditional extra just lighter and made a little more. French fragility and Vietnamese sophistication, lo and behold, the perfect sandwich.
Banh Mi sticks to tradition and delivers a classic layer structure where everything is: the pate that serves as the base, the mayonnaise that binds everything, the coriander and mint that determine the taste. We order a Chef’s Banh Mi (10.5 euros) with sausage, a fried egg, pate, kimchi, spring onion, sriracha mayonnaise and vegetables. And a Banh Mi Omelet (9 euros) with omelette, aubergine pate, sesame mayonnaise, shitaké and vegetables. Also with our banh mi, the crust of the bread seems thinner and crispier, and the inside airy and less chewy. You can easily bite through all the layers and get a mouth full of fresh flavors that run the whole gamut from sweet, sour and salty to spicy. No wonder this sandwich became a very popular street food in no time. A portion of kimchi (4.5 euros), a soft aubergine with toast (7.5 euros) and a Saigon beer (4.5 euros) and the party is complete.
When Barack Obama visited Vietnam in 2016, the food journalist Bourdain took him with him to Mi Phu in Hanoi, where, according to Bourdain, they serve the very best sandwich in the world, prepared by him as ‘a symphony of a sandwich’. Also with us in Antwerp it is a composite composition with quite a lot of music in it.
Korte Koepoortstraat 8 and Nationalestraat 146, Antwerp, banhmidesign.be
