Bahn Mi

Zora and I love our Vietnamese sandwiches. In fact, it’s one of the reasons we got married. Now I’m not saying that we got married because of Vietnamese sandwiches. But the sandwiches were certainly on our mind when we made our plans to go to City Hall and get married.

I got a couple today. From the only place that makes them really good, on Mott Street just South of Grand. This place used to be crammed under the Mahattan bridge in a stall too small by any standard. Now they share space with a jewelery store. They also (I think) just raised the prices to $3.25 from $3. Noooo problem. Actually, the picture from July confirms the price raise. Good on 'em. I've never tried the chicken sandwich. It's probably great. But the pork is so unbeatably good I have never ordered the chicken.

I thought I’d take a few pictures to share.

Still wrapped. This is how it look after six hours and 12 miles of biking.



On the plate, they look pretty good. The cilantro is wilted, but again, these sandwiches aren’t fresh anymore. When I got them, they were very McDLT. The hot side, the bread and pork, was warm. And the cold side, the veggies, was cool.



Now we’re getting to the good stuff.



Here are the innards. Top to bottom, you’ve got carrots, daikon (I think), sliced jalapenos, cilantro, Vietnamese bologna, pork, and cucumber .



What you can’t see very well is the fish sauce (nuoc nam, probably with lime and sugar), Vietnamese hot sauce, and mayonnaise. Those are the elements. I don’t think the bologna adds to the sandwich, but it’s not bad. I don’t quite know what it is. It’s better than your standard processed meat product. But it is processed meat.

So here’s what’s special:

1) The pork, God bless it, is cooked and then placed in a broiler (or toaster oven) until the top layer gets nice and browned. Then this layer is scrapped off for the sandwiches and the pork is placed back in the oven to brown the next layer. So every little bit of pork is beautifully browned and flavorful.

2) The bread is warm is crispy. Thank you French colonialism. In the picture the bread is bit soggy, but that’s my fault and not the sandwich’s.

3) Mayonnaise. Did I already thank the French?

4) The cross section. Here it is:


The crispy vegetables are all wrapped in the Vietnamese bologna. So the sandwich has many very distinct parts. And depending on the angle of your bite, you can adjust your bite to suit your desires. You bite into the bread, you get some of the fish sauce, then the crispy layer of vegetables, and finally the wonderful pork.

It’s the best sandwich in the world. Bar none.

Don't trust me? Here’s someone else’s writing on bahn mi. And she wears an "I Love Pad Thai" t-shirt (swoon).

No mas

I tried to get some more ceviche late last night. It was gone. Apparently it was for "the game." Which game I'm not sure. But the good money is on Mexico and futbol. The man said there may be some chicken soup tomorrow. He made a big point that it would not be supermarket chicken but rather chicken from the live poultry place on 31st St., but he didn't sound too confident about it being there at all.

Ali and I had some tacos instead. After that we went across the street to the Mexican bar that, despite being on my corner, I've never been in before. Why is that? Well, I've never been in there, but I somehow sensed it's the kind of place where, you know, you can treat the friendly if slightly overweight scantily-clad hispanic women to a beer for $14. For the ladies, small beers are also available for the bargain price of $7. Your beers cost $5. Dances to tunes from the Mexican juke box cost $2. It was kind of charming, in an immigrant working-man kind of way. Not being an immigrant, I let Ali do most of the talking. Such are my adventures when the wife is out of town...

I love Astoria. After work, I met Ali at an Egyptian sheesha joint. Then we went across the street to the Slovakian private bar. Then we walked back to 36th Ave and had Tacos and beer at the Mexican bodega. Followed by a final drink at the, er, working man's (and working ladies') bar.

And civeche too!

So today as I'm leaving for work, I stop by the bodega to tell them how great the soup was, and there was a big tray of Peruvian ceviche and a big platter of larded-up rice. He insisted on giving me some to try. It’s amazing! Both of them. But good civeche is worth telling people about. There’s no guarantee there will be anything special there tomorrow. He says he’s going to try and have more food, now that it’s getting colder (?). The place is open all night. Don’t confuse it with fine dinning. But there are a couple of chairs. Just move the empty beer bottles aside and the sleeping customers are usually quite friendly when they’re awake. The guys who work there are usually the only ones who speak English.

Sopa de Piscado

Coming back from picking up vegetables yesterday, I stopped in the corner bodega for some tacos and a beer. I got the tacos to go because the place was pretty full (and, at 7pm, nobody was asleep).

Normally the place just sells tacos (which are very good, but not even the best in Astoria. Though the salsa roja, is very nice). But then yesterday, next to the grill, where usually there is nothing, there was a big pot on a turned-off warmer. As I got my tacos, I asked the main man what was in the pot. He was a bit cagey. Some kind of soup, he said. But he referred me to an older man I’ve never seen there before. He seemed to confirm that it was soup, perhaps fish soup, and even agreed that I could have some, if I didn’t mind that it was cold. I promised I would warm it up later.

It’s fish soup. I was very happy to see him taking extra effort to ladle out specific chunks of soup, even though I had no idea what they were. It cost $3. For a second it actually seemed like a lot for take-out coffee cup of soup from a place where great tacos costs only $2. But it was worth every penny.

It had plantains, shrimp, scallop, and a large chunk of meaty and boney white fish. I added a little chopped onion and a big squirt of lime. The shrimps weren’t great, after the reheat. And plantains are well, plantains. But the fish was bone sucking good. The scallop stayed surprisingly tender. And the fish and bones and shrimp gave everything a wonderful flavor. Mmm, the flavor… deep and flavorful and spicy and delicious! I hope to see that pot on the corner again.

More summer vacation pictures!

I finally got Karl's pictures from Greece and Turkey. They're below. There are a lot of them. Enjoy. To save pictures, left click on the pictures to get the large version. Then right click and select "save image as." Then you can have them for your own (non-commercial use) and order prints of all your favorite grandchildren, for instance.

At the train station

on our way back to Greece

At least the window opened. But you couldn't stick your head out. And there were mosquitoes on this train, probably in the ventilation system, the only time we had that problems.

Kadiköy Market

At the honey store. This store even has its own website.

Fish

Hello, my tasty one!

Lunch at Çiya

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St Sophia

Below is Zora's namesake, Empress Zoe. A Byzantine expert told my father that Zoe was deposed by bad guys but then came back to return to her rightful position. The expert probably had a few more details, but anyway.

Chora

The builder (note the Byzantine headdress) present the church to Christ.



lamb slaughter







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Gurhan's BBQ

A lot of magic would be done on this little grill





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The view from his place... not bad.





I looks like I'm a giant here.

burn baby burn













eggplant





















It was this big

fuck no, it was even bigger!





wonderful