From Hanoi to Hackney

Vietnamese restaurants in London might be growing in their number, but there are curiously few places that serve the classic Franco-Vietnamese creation, the bánh mì (pronounced BUN-mee). This humble sandwich encapsulates the fusion of the two cultures perfectly. A light, crusty baguette (which is, unusually, more crust than crumb, and made with a blend of wheat and rice flour) is filled with generous smears of pork liver pâté, and stuffed to the brim with all manner of Vietnamese accoutrements. If you’ve never had one, well, we’re not too surprised…it's a relatively recent import to London.

History of bánh mì

The bánh mì’s origins lie sometime around the early half of the 20th Century in Vietnam, when it was a much simpler affair of bread, butter and pâté (so far, so French). Many Vietnamese now revel in the fact that it was they who elevated the baguette up and above this frugal form – adding fresh, colourful do chua (pickled carrot and radish), fragrant meats grilled over an open flame, squelchy slices of pork roll (cha lua) and other such cold cuts, punchy herbs and chilli and creamy mayonnaise. It puts the old British ham and cheese sandwich to shame.

Given Britain’s love affair with the sarnie, it’s a surprise that there have been so few Vietnamese entrepreneurs prepared to introduce Londoners to the joy of the bánh mì. Across the pond, the bánh mì craze – and resulting ‘sandwich wars’ – struck the Americans as early as the 1980s. While our greedy fellow gourmets in Washington D.C, New York City and California (as well as in Sydney, Australia) fight daily over which eatery has the best baguette, the creamiest pâté or the most generous touch, we in the Big Smoke have been late to discover them. Sometime over the last year, one of the few people serving bánh mì, Pho, removed it from their menu completely. For a while, only Loong Kee Café on Kingsland Road was serving this elusive baguette.

New movement

Now, there's a handful of bright sparks out there who seem keen on bringing bánh mì to the masses. (We await the day when there are enough of these places to hold our own ‘best new bánh mì’ awards, like at Time Out New York.)

We reported back in early June 2009 that a new Vietnamese caff in Surrey Quays, Banzi, was doing a commendable job at serving bánh mì – all for under a fiver. Here, they offer a handful of different fillings; from the more traditional thit nuong (chargrilled pork) to less ubiquitous sate ga (satay chicken). Our pick (pictured above) had to be the full-blown ‘Vietnamese special’ (bánh mì dac biet) stuffed full of pork sausage, king prawns and chargrilled pork among the usual pickled veg, pâté, mayo, chilli and coriander.

Considering bánh mì is more of a street food, there’s just something odd about being served bánh mì in the civil surrounds of a restaurant (though Banzi’s version, neatly served in a bamboo basket, was a sweet touch). So we were thrilled to hear of not one, but two bánh mì stalls springing up at two markets in London. The Baguette + More stall in the Fountain food market corner in Greenwich (next to NatWest, just off Greenwich Church Street) has only recently started operating.

As for the second opening, it was the Randomness Guide to London who tipped us off about Banhmi11 just days after its first Saturday operation in Hackney's Broadway Market. Soon after, fellow bánh mì obsessive Alice (of the food blog An American in London) broke the first review of the stall. And the next weekend, we were there like a shot.

Banhmi11 is a family-run project that’s been taken under the wing of Rob Athill and Tuyen Hong of Cà Phê VN – they share the same space, making it the ultimate destination for a chilled cupful of Vietnamese coffee (have it with or without condensed milk, though the former is more common) along with a traditional bánh mì. All to be enjoyed while perching on the Vietnamese street market-style metal stools, naturally, while watching the world go by. It’s like Hanoi, Hackney style.

The stall is staffed by three generations of women – Anh Vu, her mother (who they call Bà Trinh), her best friend Van Tran and niece Trang Nguyen. All hail from Hanoi, where Anh’s mother used to make bánh mì. ‘She used to have people cycle ten kilometres just to eat her bánh mì,’ says Anh. ‘So [here], the pâté is not just made by anyone – it’s my mum’s recipe.’ Indeed, the pâté – all rustic and coarse on the outside, served in slabs, but meltingly tender on the tongue – is top notch. Seven hours of hard work well spent. Everything, except for the bread (which they source from the small local Spence Bakery) is made from scratch as close to the Saturday opening as possible. The Parish Butcher supplies them with ‘all the special things’ for the pork pâté. Using produce from local suppliers is important to Anh, because she wants to create not just a Vietnamese bánh mì, but a ‘real London baguette’ – something that you could only experience here in the Big Smoke. ‘We don’t try to replicate it exactly,’ says Anh. ‘We have some things that we think are very local. We try to make our bánh mì authentic, but we want to make it very London at the same time.’

After a disastrous first day, where the bread left something to be desired, it seems like they’ve already hit their stride in the second week with the second batch of baguettes from their new baker. The crust is suitably crackly, the crumb light and airy – not an easy task.

And, as the New York Times pointed out in their bánh mì report, the freshness of the bread is crucial. The baguettes are baked fresh in the morning and delivered to the stall by 8am – quickly heated up in their compact oven for a few minutes to order, it’s not the most ideal (as even the freshest baguette begins to go stale after a few hours), but then this is a small operation. More importantly, they’ve got the crackly crust right. And as with all good Vietnamese bánh mì, you feel like you could eat half a dozen before feeling full. If there’s one criticism (which we brought up with the girls immediately), we have to say that the fillings were a tad on the thin side. Not like we’re expecting anything close to the lines of this, though:

Still, we’ll be ordering a ‘jumbo’ next time…

It’s all looking rather positive so far. But we’re still wondering why in the world there hasn’t been more bánh mì in London. Anh imparts some wisdom: ‘For bánh mì, you need a lot of time and attention. You can do bánh mì, by all means – it’s just a baguette you put stuffing in, put pickles in. But to make a good bánh mì, there are a lot of extra things [you have to do]; it requires a lot of attention.’ She doesn’t divulge Banhmi11’s secrets, but we get the message. This is no simple sandwich, and to make it is a massive commitment. Here’s hoping that others will rise up to the challenge.

ETA (23/07/09): We've just found out about a new Vietnamese place in Southwark called Ca Phe House – we hear they also do bánh mì. Stay tuned for our review!

Bag a baguette

Where to break your bread and spend your dough

Baguette + More, The Fountain food market (next to NatWest bank), off Greenwich Church St, SE10. Weekends only. Greenwich rail or Cutty Sark DLR.

Banhmi11, Broadway Market, E2. Saturdays 11am-5pm. Bethnal Green tube or Cambridge Heath rail.

Banzi, 237 Lower Rd, SE16 2LW (7394 0906). Canada Water tube.

Café Bay, 75 Denmark Hill, SE5 8RS (7703 2531). Denmark Hill rail.

Bea Vo's guide to bánh mì

Bea Vo is the owner of Bea's of Bloomsbury. She is Vietnamese-American, and grew up in Washington D.C., which is home to one of the largest Vietnamese communities in the US. Here, she talks about what makes a good bánh mì.

A typical Vietnamese baguette is made with 50 per cent rice flour and 50 per cent wheat flour (T45), and because of that, the result is a drier, crispier, lighter baguette. There should be very small uniform bubbles in the bread, instead of bigger, softer bubbles. The crust is crispier, but also much much thinner, so it almost crackles under the pressure of being wrapped in paper.

The cornichons originally used in French-style baguettes were replaced by the sweet pickled carrot and radish combination, plus a cucumber slice for more texture. The pâtés are studded with black pepper, typically made with chicken, duck or pork liver, and spiced with a little five spice seasoning.

The mayonnaise should be made with egg yolks, and a lot of salt and oil - it should be on the verge of almost breaking. The salt is really important, because the mayonnaise is meant to be a replacement for butter, and it really brings out the fatty taste of the mayonnaise.

Finally the bánh mì is supplemented with steamed pork roll (cha lua), coriander, and the ever present, red Thai chilli, to eat in little bites with the sandwich. Other cold meats can be added as well, such as a pork galantine, with five-spice seasoning (it has a reddish hue).

That's the typical cold-cut Vietnamese baguette. The other variation, is to make it into a grilled meat sandwich, where the cha lua and pâté are replaced with grilled sweet pork (typically marinated in sugar, garlic, black pepper, sometimes lemongrass, sometimes sesame oil), and the chilli is replaced with jalapeño peppers.

The trick to all of it, is balance. A proper Vietnamese sandwich should have the crisp lightness of the bread, the fattiness and richness of the pâté and mayonnaise, the chewiness of the cha lua, the sweetness of the pickled radish and carrot and the crunchiness of the cucumber, with the red chilli to keep your tastebuds going.