Banh mi

Being the decisive so and so I am, I decided to stick the award somewhere nearer home instead. The 2006 TasteEverything award goes to The Best Sandwich in Saigon and the stallholder at 37 Nguyen Trai street in District 1, Saigon, Vietnam. She serves weekdays only, from 5pm until the stall runs dry. I've tried many a sarnie in this mad megalopolis, but this particular specimen is undeniably the bread's bollocks. Enjoy. I did. Burp.

I received this in the comments some two months ago. "Another sarnie tip-off. A woman sets up (after 5:30pm) a "banh mi thit nuong" stand. The thit nuong are like little grilled sausages. Plus, she throws on some bbq sauce. Best sandwiches I've had in Saigon. A real gem of a find." Upon reading the suggestion I grabbed a camera, snatched the nearest notebook, powered out of fortress pie, hailed a passing chariot and headed out in search of this "gem". A mere 64 days later I alight at this pavement stall at 37 Nguyen Trai street in District 1. I'm hungry, but zen. I've arrived. I grab the plushest, fur lined, plastic stool I can find and order.

And here it is. Banh mi thit nuong translates vaguely as a meatball sub (kinda). It's 5,000VD. I'm a sucker for an electricity bill wrapped sarnie. Is it a internationally common cultural thing? Between the ages of 8 and 16 I was raised by bedouin tribes people who insisted on a strict intake of roughly 10% Fish n chips from the Hillmorton Fish Saloon on Featherbed Lane, Rugby in the UK. Used to have to queue down the street to get in there at dinner time. Fish n chips, like banh mi, come wrapped in paper. Normally newspaper; The Sun, The Mirror, maybe the local rag. Never The Telegraph, Times or Guardian. Why? It's an interesting intercultural phenomenon - this paper wrap business - what paper is used, where, is the crossword already completed? or soaked in vinegar?

One banh mi thit nuong takes less than a minute to assemble in the construction bay. Inside the baguette it's warm, snug and saucy. It's filled with wee charcoal grilled pork patties, pickled carrots, radish, fresh slices of cucumber, some chopped spring onion, fresh coriander and a dash of hot sauce. I've yet to install the sniffablog plug in on this blog, but when I do, you'll receive beams of steamy hot sweet, meat soaked vapours direct to your desktop. It's seductively warm, a harlot of a hoagie. It has a confident aroma. The smell of a successful sarnie.

I hope the satellite imagery above will help you navigate the terrain. Shame you can't do a Google Earth and zoom in, crashland in amongst that arty sprawl of scoff, just wallow in it for a bit... Oh well. Technology - marvellous innit - has it's limits though. And so for now, you're just going to have take my word for it. This is the best sandwich I have ever had in Saigon. Thank you NoStar Where. I may be slow. But you were not wrong. More snaps.

Tip off: Pig skin sarnies

This stall outside the barfsome - and then barfsomemore - Lotteria at the corner of Nam Ky Khoi Nghia and Nguyen Dinh Chieu streets in District 1 is famous. Well, that's what my taxi driver tells me. It 's a morning only deal and it serves Banh mi bi (pig skin/pork sarnies). Toan, my driver, isn't sure why this particular pig skin outlet is the 'famous' one, but it most definitely is yumadelic, he assures me. It's about as simple as a sarnie stall gets in Saigon - and we've tried a few... In the cabinet, on the left, we have chopped pork, on the right, shredded fried pig skin. And that is pretty much that.

Take one petite banh mi (yes - it's smaller than your average banh mi) Add the usual fixings; crinkle cut shredded pickled carrot and raddish, a dash of red chilli flake suspension sauce, a scratch of pepper and you're done. It comes wrapped in an old electricity bill, sealed with an elastic band and handed to you in a plastic bag. It costs a mighty 3,000VD. I've tried this twice now, once with chilli sauce, once without. I'm not massive on hot sauce, but for this specimen I'd advise you to go that way. Fire, pigskin, pickles and bread - it works way better than the straight version which I found too dry.

In the picture above - and in a first for the internets - you can clearly see the sandwich strata as it evolved from the bread base into pigskin, pork and pickled greens. This is a quality find, amazingly light and an excellent tip off. Definitely my new favourite "if I'm in the area and peckish at breakfast time" street score. Recommended. More pics.