Festival to bite into top Vietnamese sandwiches

Vietnam's first banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich) festival will take place from March 30 to April 2 at the Ho Chi Minh City Youth Cultural House, 4 Pham Ngoc Thach street, District 1.

Nguyen Thi Khanh, chairwoman of the HCMC Tourism Association - the organizer, introduced the event at a press conference on Thursday.

The festival will gather 120 booths representing restaurants, bakeries and suppliers in Vietnam and the world. It will include a seminar titled "The journey to develop Vietnamese baguettes", introducing 105 dishes prepared by famous chefs.

Attendees can enjoy famous baguette brands for free. There will also be a poll for the top 50-year-old, most famous brand in Vietnam.

Khanh said organizers are proposing March 24 as Vietnam Bread Day. This is the day the Vietnamese word "banh mi" first appeared in the Oxford dictionary.

Kao Sieu Luc, president of the International Bread Association of Southeast Asia, said people typically want to know how Vietnamese baguettes differs from French baguettes.

He said that Vietnamese baguette is the specific to the Asian diet, meaning it is spongy, crisp, and soft inside. Meanwhile, the French baguette is typiclly hard, crispy and chewy.

Last November, banh mi was named among 23 of the world's best sandwiches by CNN.

"A culinary remnant of French colonialism, the baguette sandwich was reinterpreted to their own taste by the Vietnamese. Banh mi are now sold from food carts on nearly every street corner in Ho Chi Minh City and across Vietnam and are widely loved well beyond the country's borders," the U.S. cable news channel wrote.

"The classic version is pork-based, starring cha lua (Vietnamese-style pork roll), shredded pickled carrots, pickled daikon, cilantro leaves, mayonnaise and other ingredients," it described.

CNN suggested: "You can find variations with tofu and thinly sliced lemongrass chicken, too. The taste is crunchy, fresh, savory and utterly delicious."

In August, banh mi was one of three Vietnamese cuisines named among Asia's 50 best street foods by the news channel. CNN’s Kate Springer called the banh mi "a uniquely Vietnamese creation".

"Like many foods on this list, the ingredients will vary from north to south and east to west. Still, a classic combination includes pork, pickled vegetables, coriander, chili and a healthy smear of pate sandwiched by a crispy, fluffy baguette," she wrote in an article published Wednesday.

In July, readers of The Travel, a Canadian travel site, chose banh mi as one of the world's top 10 best.

The Vietnamese sandwich was ranked second in a recent essay by foodie Richard Johnson on the world’s best street food carried by UK national broadsheet The Guardian.

The piece described a light baguette grilled over coals. "After a smear of mayonnaise and a dollop of pate, the crispy shell is filled with meat, crunchy pickled vegetables and fresh herbs. It is then typically seasoned with a few drops of soy sauce and a spicy chili condiment."