lunchtime ADVENTUUUURES (adventures... adventure... adventu...)

i've decided that detailing fun things that i eat is an excellent use of blog space. so!

today's lunchtime ADVENTURE took me deep into the east village (ok, not that deep) in search of bánh mì. bánh mì is a vietnamese sandwich. this would be my first bánh mì experience, and i really did not know much more than the country of origin. however, anyone who has ever had vietnamese food probably doesn't need much more coaxing than that, since vietnamese food tends to be like an asian food if made by the french.

i headed over to "nicky's vietnamese sandwiches" at 150 E2 St. (just off Ave A). there's a selection of 4 sandwiches, but since this was my first time, i went with the "special" sandwich, which contains:

• pâté
• ground roast pork
• vietnamese ham
• pickled carrots
• cucumber
• cilantro
• mayonnaise

they ask you if you want the sandwich spicy, which i inferred to mean "do you want us to put jalapenos on your sandwich." i did not get it spicy.

besides the pâté, mayonnaise and cilantro (actually, where the hell is cilantro from?), the european influence is borne out in the choice of bread, which is a nice crusty baguette. i usually don't like french bread and tend to prefer the softer italian hero bread, but this bread was really fresh and i wouldn't have changed it for the world. i tried to taste a piece of the vietnamese ham separately from the rest of the sandwich, especially since it was very pale (if you showed it to me out of context i probably would have guessed that it was processed turkey). it basically tasted like a generic cold cut, but i didn't really taste that much of it. there isn't much of each ingredient in this sandwich (one slice of ham, one sprig of cilantro, etc) but all together they make for a good size sandwich, certainly enough for lunch.

the sandwich really epitomized what can be so crazy wonderful about vietnamese cooking, which is that it's distinctly asian but go figure out why that is in the midst of pâté and mayonnaise. i think here it may have been the pickled carrots and whatever seasoning is on the pork, but who the hell knows. my one criticism of this place was that they fill the baguette instead of layering the ingredients. this way, all of the pickled carrots are on the cut side of the baguette and all the pork on the other side. this makes for sub-optimal mixing of flavors, but probably makes for a more stable sandwich.

all the sandwiches at this place are a very reasonable $3.95. yeah, that's right, four bucks for a sandwich that has fucking PÂTÉ on it.

here's a list of places to get banh mi in new york. reading that makes me feel like i totally missed the point by not getting jalapenos. well, it was good anyhow.