Our frig is a bit over-loaded with left-overs, so what to do??? Well, I’d been told that, "anything is good in Banh Mi…" So I decided to Banh Mi-size my left-overs….. Being in the neighborhood quite early in the morning, I stopped by Paris Bakery on El Cajon Boulevard.
I dodged several women carrying paper sacks full of bread out to their cars left running on El Cajon
Boulevard……I don’t know why they were in such a rush; but perhaps they felt a sense of urgency that only hot, steaming, Vietnamese Baguettes can exercise…..
I went in grabbed a bag of 4 Banh Mi($1), which I opened and let breath once I got home. The bread at Paris is pretty good, with a good bit of crackle without being crumbly, and there is some bread in the Banh Mi, it is not "all crust", the bread is a bit chewy, which I enjoy in a Banh Mi.
Paris Bakery also makes sandwiches, which I’ll post on a bit later on. I’m not quite sure what time they open, but getting their the earlier, the better.
Paris Bakery
4481 El Cajon Blvd
San Diego, CA 92115
So what did I do with the Banh Mi?
Glad you asked….well, unless you’re really interested in the left-overs in our frig, perhaps you should leave now. So let’s see if you can figure this out….
Its……Fuqi Feipian from Ba Ren, along with some shredded cucumber, and cilantro leaves. (If you’ve read my posts on Banh Mi, you know that one of my pet peeves are the stringy stems of cilantro, so I guess I can’t be a hypocrite, can I?) This tasted pretty good, the flavor of the Fuqi Feipian stood up well to the bread.
Next one:
This is an easy one…..it’s the left over Cumin Lamb from Dede’s, along with thinly sliced red onion, and cilantro leaves. This sandwich tasted fairly good, but was missing something…… The solution was quite simple, just as some people believe everything tastes better on a Banh Mi, most people know that everything will taste better with Maggi Seasoning Sauce. The savory "umami" that the Maggi brought to the sandwich was discernible.
So, does everything really taste better in a Banh Mi?
Its story time; at one of my first jobs back in High School, one of the Security Gua
rds used to bring his own "special" sandwich to lunch several times a week. This guy loved this sandwich…the aroma rising from the sandwich was quite unusual, I thought that I could make out the individual ingredients, but didn’t believe anyone would eat that combination…. So one day I asked, and yes indeed, it was…. A peanut butter and Kimchi sandwich! With mayo! Elvis had nothing on this guy. Apparently, he acquired a taste for this while stationed in Korea. Over the years, I’ve mentioned this unique sandwich to many….and beyond the "ewwwws", wrinkled noses, and gagging noises, I couldn’t find anyone who’d ever heard of such a combination. Earlier his year, for reasons still unknown to me, I did a search on "Peanut Butter Kimchi Sandwich" and did find an actual article that mentioned it, though only in passing.
So to finally see if everything tastes better on a Banh Mi, I decided to make a:
Peanut Butter and Kimchi Sandwich, sans the mayo! But with Maggi of course…in hopes that it would make anything taste better….. As per instructions I received several decades back, I used "Chunky" peanut butter……
So what’s the verdict? Not as bad as I thought, the kimchi overwhelmed the peanut butter….sort of kimchi upfront, with a peanut finish. The Maggi actually brought out the savory fishiness(in a good way). The Missus could not sit in the same room, with me while I ate this, and while I don’t think I’ll have it again soon, it wasn’t too bad at all.
So maybe everything does taste better on a Banh Mi? What do you think?
You can find Guilty Carnivore’s Kimchi Banh Mi(albeit a bit more conventional) here, along with a BBQ Pork Banh Mi here.
Fellow San Diego Food Blogger mscinda, has a home made Banh Mi post here.
And of course Wandering Chopsticks has home made Banh Mi posts here and here.
And if you really want a silly sandwich, this was seen walking along Clairemont Drive this afternoon:
I guess I was destined to do a sandwich post today!